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Literature of the South 



BY 

CAROLINE MAYS BREVARD 

Author of ''A School History of Florida.** 



I 



n 



BROADWAY PUBLISHING CO. 

835 BROADWAY, ^ NEW YORK 



LIBRARY oi CONc}f<€SS)| 

AUG n ^yoa 

Cu^ // /^^^ 



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Copyright. 19(8. 

BY 

CAROLINE MAYS BREVARD 



All rights reserved. 



To 

My Mother, 
Mary Call Brevard. 



PREFACE. 

To give an introduction to the study of Literature 
as it has developed in the South leading to the fur- 
ther study of the works of southern authors, is the 
purpose of this book. 

Literature and history go hand in hand, for, when 
all is said, the literature of a people is the expression 
of their life. To understand Literature, then, we 
must understand its source. I have endeavored to 
indicate the characteristic of the succeeding periods 
of literary development, and to trace the influence 
of historical events upon the life and consequent 
expression of the people of the South. 

It has, of course, been impossible to discuss all 
southern writers. Only the more representative 
are treated with any fulness, and many names have 
been necessarily omitted. Thus, also, the lists given 
of writers and their works are representative and 
not exhaustive. 

Caroun^ M. Brkvard. 

Tallahassee, Fla. 



OOlNTJ^Ta. 



CHAPTER L PAGE 

The Bcgmnings of Southern Literature,,, , i 

CHAPTER n. 
The Revolutionary Period 14 

CHAPTER HI. 
The Period of Development 28 

CHAPTER IV. 
John James Audubon 50 

CHAPTER V. 
Edgar Allen Poe (fj 

CHAPTER VI. 
Hugh Swinton Legare Zi 

CHAPTER VII. 
William Gilmore Simms 95 

CHAPTER VIII. 
War Poetry of the South 112 

CHAPTER IX. 
Literature in the South Since i860 127 

CHAPTER X. 
Henry Timrod 143 

CHAPTER XL 
Paul Hayne 156 

CHAPTER XII. 
Sidney Lanier 169 



THE BEGINNINGS 01? SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

1607-1765. 

We are familiar with the saying that American 
Literature had no infancy, but sprang into being 
Pallas-hke, full armed, and in the strength of 
maturity. The chief difficulty confronting us at 
the beginning of our study is to decide according to 
some just rule whom among the writers in America, 
or among those who wrote about America, we can 
claim as our own. Is the fact that an Englishman 
wrote of America, or in America, enough to give 
his works a place among American writers? Ac- 
cording to strict classification this can hardly be 
admitted; yet since Literature is the expression of 
a people's life, can we in its study neglect anything 
that throws light on that life? Descriptions of 
America and narratives of the early settlements, 
written by Englishmen spending at most a few years 
in our land, have their interest, though historical 
rather than literary. Considering their literary 
value. Dr. Greenough White says: "The highest 
praise that can be given them is that they contain 
a few echoes of the sonorous prose of the Eliza- 
bethan age." 

When Jamestown was settled Shakespeare was 



2 Lite:ratur^ in the: South 

yet living. How much or how little the great 
dramatist knew of events in the New World we can 
not tell. Smith declared, "They have acted my 
fatal tragedies on the stage." It was an age great 
both in action and in thought, in both homes of the 
English people, but on this side of the ocean energy 
found expression chiefly in meeting and overcom- 
ing dangers, in asserting mastery over savage man 
and savage beast, in clearing forests and building 
homes, in ploughing the seas and braving the ele- 
ments. When they did write, these plain, blunt 
men of action, it was with the strength of simplicity 
and directness. 

In 1588 Thomas Hariot printed in London an 
account of the first English plantation in Virginia, 
that at Roanoke. This work was reproduced at 
Frankfort-on-the-Main by Theodore de Bry, a 
noted publisher and engraver. Hariot was one of 
the 107 men whose names are given by Hakluyt as 
making the first settlement in Virginia. John 
White, a draughtsman, was another of these men, 
and the pictures illustrating the manners and cus- 
toms of the Indians and the plants and animals 
of the country were drawn by White and after- 
wards engraved by De Bry. The first edition of 
Harlot's work was not illustrated. The second edi- 
tion was illustrated and published in English, 
French, Latin, and German, forming the first part 
of De Bry's series, "The Collection of Voyages." 
This book did much to interest people in the New 
World, and the success of the work was so great, 
that the next year De Bry published the second part 
of his series on the Floridas. 

Hariot wrote in glowing terms of the countrjr't 



Literature: in the: South 3 

resources, the forests and their products, the maize, 
the grapes, the furs and deer skins, the game and 
fish, the marvellous tobacco, according to his ac- 
count, almost a panacea for human ills. His as- 
surances of wealth to be found in the New World 
are as alluring as those made by the modern land 
agent. He writes much of the laziness of the 
Indians, though this, he says, is not to be wondered 
at in a country so fertile. The maps accompanying 
the text are not always correct, but the illustrations 
leave a vivid impression. 

George Percy, a younger brother of the Earl of 
Northumberland, came with the first settlers to Vir- 
ginia. He wrote ''A Discourse of the Plantation 
of the Southern Colony of Virginia," a narrative 
of those early days, the starving time, and the fever 
time. The best known account of those early days 
is Smith's "True Relation of such Occurrences and 
Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia 
Since the First Planting of that Colony." This 
book was printed in London, 1608, and was followed 
by other works. Smith's style of writing is very 
direct, picturesque, and forcible, and reflects the 
time and country better than a more polished ele- 
gance might have done. One does not weary in 
reading of these adventures that lose nothing in the 
telling. His reasons given to good and devout men 
for the planting of colonies are founded upon re- 
ligion mingled with ambition, and though very in- 
genious are hardly convincing to the student of 
to-day. Yet in reading them we have the prevailing 
tliought of the time Smith represented. 

When Sir Thomas Gates came to Virginia in 
1609 he was accomi)anied by William Strachey, who 



4 Literature: in the: South 

was secretary of the colony for three years. Their 
ship, the **Sea Venture," was wrecked on the Ber- 
mudas in a terrible storm. An account of this storm 
is given by Strachey in "A True Repertory of the 
Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates Upon 
the Island of the Bermudas," and it is interesting 
to read this account in connection with the first two 
scenes of the Tempest. For it is thought by some, 
that the scene of the storm and hurricane in the 
play was suggested to Shakespeare by this descrip- 
tion of the storm in ''the still vext Bermoothes." 
And, indeed, it would not be strange if the great 
master mind had been moved by the simple account 
of the 'Wracke and Redemption," though one may 
well hesitate to assert direct indebtedness. 

In marked contrast to the New Englanders, the 
Virginians were from the first staunch supporters 
of Church and State. Unfortunately, not all the 
clergy in those early days were zealous as they 
might have been in the cause of religion or educa- 
tion, and some unlovely pictures have been drawn 
of subservient domestic chaplains, of fox-hunting, 
card-playing parsons. With them, but not of them, 
clear and beautiful in modest fame, stands the figure 
of Alexander Whitaker, the "Apostle to Virginia." 
He came to the colony in 1611, labored in religion's 
cause among the colonists and Indians, and in 161 3 
wrote "Good News from Virginia." 

When Governor Wyat came to Virginia in 1621, 
Mr. George Sandys came with him, and, undaunted 
by dangers and difftculties, completed his transla- 
tion of Ovid in 1622. He wrote it, he says, "by 
that imperfect light which was snatched from the 
hours of night and repose, having wars and tumults 



LiTE:RA'ruR^ IN the: South 5 

to bring it to light instead of the muses." How- 
ever, as Sandys returned to England within a few 
years we can hardly claim him as an American poet. 

More truly American were the writers that fol- 
lowed. In 1656 appeared John Hammond's "Two 
Sisters, Leah and Rachel." The two sisters sym- 
bolized Virginia and Maryland, and, now for the 
first time in our Literature, we find the expression 
of differentiation in local pride, the forerunner of 
the State pride, later so strong in the South. Ten 
years passed, then George Alsop wrote "Character 
of the Province of Maryland, Small Treatise on the 
Wild and Naked Indians, or Susquehannakes of 
Maryland." Certain anonymous papers, called the 
Burwell papers, discovered by the Burwell family 
of Virginia, give the record of the beginnings of 
patriotic feeling and struggle against oppression. 
Among these papers is a poem, "Death," signed sim- 
ply, "Bacon's Man." This had been considered the 
first expression of the purely elegiac in Virginia 
literature. 

A poor book may do good work if it cause a 
better one to be written. Nearly a hundred years 
after the settlement of Jamestown, Robert Beverly, 
a native of Virginia, a wealthy planter, visited Lon- 
don. There he saw the manuscript of Oldmixion's 
"British Empire in America." He found many in- 
accuracies in the work and was filled with indigna- 
tion at certain misrepresentations; as, for instance, 
that the servants in Virginia were made to draw in 
cart and plow, and that the country turned all peo- 
ple black. Forthwith he set to work to write a 
more just account of Virginia and Virginia folk. 
The historical portions of his work have been criti- 



6 LlT^RAtUR^ IN THE SoUTH 

cised as partial and not always accurate, but when 
he wrote of plants and animals, of Indians and of 
colonists, of manners and of customs, he knew 
whereof he wrote, and wrote well. This book, 
**Eistory of Virginia," was printed in London in 
1705. Forty years later the Rev. William Stith, 
a professor in William and Mary College, pub- 
lished a "History of the First Discovery and Settle- 
ment of Virginia," a work impartial and scholarly, 
but with less of vividness than Beverly's. 

*'In the year 1700," wrote John Lawson, a gentle- 
man of Scotland, "when people flocked from all 
parts of the Christian world to see the solemnity 
of the grand jubilee at Rome, my intention being 
at that time to travel, I accidentally met with a 
gentleman, who had been abroad, and was very well 
acquainted with the ways of living in both Indies; 
of whom, having made inquiry concerning them, he 
assured me that Carolina was the best country he 
could go to, and that there then lay in the Thames 
a ship in which I might have passage." Acting 
upon the suggestion of the traveled gentleman, he 
came to Carolina and liked the country so well that 
he made it his home. He was made surveyor-gen- 
eral of North Carolina, and thus had excellent op- 
. portunities of studying the country and its people, 
the plant and animal life, as well as the geography. 
He observed closely and recorded carefully. He 
wrote a "History of North Carolina," which is a 
faithful record of his observations in the eastern 
part of the country, and which is written in the 
most engaging style. The student of our early 
history can ill-afford to neglect the study of this 
book. It was pubHshed in 171 4, two years after 



Literature in the South 7 

Lawson's death. He met his end on a surveying 
expedition near the Neuse River ; for the Tuscarora 
Indians, as he was marking off their land, captured 
him and put him to death. 

One of the best known characters of the early 
colonial days is William Byrd, of Westover. A na- 
tive of Virginia, he was educated in England under 
the direction of Sir Robert Southwell, making, ac- 
cording to the inscription on his tomb, "a happy 
proficiency in polite and varied learning," and met 
"the first persons of that age for knowledge, wit, 
virtue, birth, or high station." After having been 
called to the bar in the middle Temple, studying in 
the Low Countries, visiting the Court of France, 
having been chosen F. R. S., he was made receiver- 
general of his Majesty's revenues in Virginia, then 
public agent to the court and ministry of England. 
For thirty-seven years he was a member of the 
council of Virginia, then its president. Again quot- 
ing from the inscription on his monument, *'To all 
this was added a great elegancy of taste and life, 
the well-bred gentleman and polite companion, the 
splendid economist and prudent father of a family, 
with the constant enemy of all exorbitant power, 
and the hearty friend to the liberties of his country." 
His writings, the Westover MSS., ''History of the 
Dividing Line," "A Journey Into the Land of 
Eden," and "The Progress to the Mines," all reflect 
the man. With culture, keen observation, and ex- 
tended knowledge, is mingled much wit and 
humor, these qualities enlivening even the account 
of the journey through the Dismal Swamp. Here is 
a bit of his description of the Spotswood home, 
taken from "A Progress to the Mines"; "This 



8 lyiT^RATURi: IN mt South 

famous town (Germanna) consists of Colo. Spots- 
wood's enchanted castle on one side of the street, 
and a Baker's Dozen of ruinous Tenements on the 
other, where so many German Familys had dwelt 
some years ago; but are now remov'd. * * * 
There had also been a Chappel about a Bow, that 
from the colonel's house at the end of an avenue of 
Cherry Trees, but some pious people had lately burnt 
it down, with intent to get another built nearer to 
their own homes. 

''Here I arrived about three o'clock, and found 
only Mrs. Spottswood at Home, who receiv'd her 
Old acquaintance with many a gracious Smile. I 
was carry'd into a Room elegantly set off with Pier 
Glasses, the largest of which came soon after to an 
odd Misfortune. Amongst other favourite Animals 
that cheer'd this Lady's Solitude, a Brace of Tame 
Deer ran familiarly about the House, and one of 
them came to stare at me as a Stranger. But un- 
luckily, Spying his own Figure in a Glass, he made 
a spring over the Tea Table, that stood under it, 
and shatter'd the Glass to pieces, and falling back 
upon the Tea Table, made a terrible Fracas among 
the China. This Exploit was so sudden, and ac- 
company'd with such a Noise that it surpriz'd me, 
and perfectly frighten'd Mrs. Spotswood. But 
'twas worth all the Damage to shew the Moderation 
and good humor with which she bore this disaster." 

The life and love of Evelyn, the beautiful daugh- 
ter of Colonel Byrd, have been the theme of ro- 
mance and of song down to the present time. Cooke, 
in his "Dream of the Cavaliers," thus pictures the 
father and daughter : — 



Literature in the South 9 

" Brave William Byrd, the planter, 
Of Westover by the shore, 
Smiles still from the faded canvas, 
As he smiled in the days before. 

And the girl with faint, sweet blushes 
Like the light of morning skies, 
With the lips of fresh carnations. 
And the tender, haunting eyes, 

Is Evelyn Byrd, his daughter, 
A flower of the elder day, 
Who passed like a bud of April 
From the sorrowful world away. 

The father is like a marquis 
Of the great old Norman race. 
The child is a rose just blooming 
With a heaven in her face. 

They live in the elder annals 
As they hang on Brandon wall, 
The girl with her tender beauty 
And the planter noble and tall. 

They shine like stars of morning. 
Through the mists of by-gone years—* 
You pass, as you gaze on the canvas, 
To the days of the Cavaliers.'* 

The literary history of the South could not be 
written without mention of the Rev. James Blair, 
first President of William and Mary College, rep- 
resentative of the Bishop of London, whose history 



10 Lite:rature: in th^ South 

for forty-three years was closely connected not only 
with his college and parish, but with the church and 
government of Virginia. His four volumes on the 
''Saviour's Sermon on the Mount" contain one 
hundred and seventeen sermons, and went through 
two editions in England. His congregation at Bru- 
ton Parish was composed of wealthy, fashionable, 
and influential people, but in his plain denunciation 
of prevailing evils Mr. Blair spared none. ''I do 
not wonder," says Bishop Meade, ''that some of the 
Governors and great ones complained of his being 
personal." He found little infidelity in the colony, 
but much wickedness in clergy and laity, and this 
wickedness he exposed and denounced. Naturally, 
on account of his independence, he was constantly 
involved in difficulties with Governors, clergymen, 
and others. First there was a controversy with 
Governor Andros, who was by Royal instructions 
not only the king's representative in matters of 
State, but in matters of Church as well. Blair, who 
happened to be in England in the interests of his 
college, brought charges against Andros as an enemy 
to religion, the church, the clergy, and the college. 
Andros sent over four friends, among them Colonel 
William Byrd, to make his defence and to arraign 
Blair himself before the Bishop of London and 
Archbishop of Canterbury. But in spite of the prej- 
udice against Blair as a Scotchman, the result was 
that the charges against him could not be sustained, 
and he came home with a large sum of money for 
the college, while Andros was summoned to Eng- 
land for trial. Then there were difficulties with 
Nicholson, the successor of Andros, and later with 
Spottswood, who had once been Blair's friend, 



Lite:ratur^ in the South ii 

Spottswood was a resolute old soldier, too noble in 
character to be compared with Nicholson and 
Andros, but he stood staunchly for the royal pre- 
rogative and the transfer of it to himself as gov- 
ernor, and soon found himself unpopular with the 
House of Burgesses and with certain vestries on 
account of his claim of higher powers than they 
were willing to acknowledge. He and Blair were 
soon in opposition. For the last time charges were 
brought against Blair, now of a transgression of 
the rubrics, with an insinuation that he had not re- 
ceived Episcopal ordination. Again Blair was 
cleared, and passed the rest of his life in compara- 
tive peace. Such was the man who built up the 
College of William and Mary, and spent the best 
years of his life in its establishment. At his death 
he left his library and five hundred pounds to the 
College. It is hardly necessary to dwell on the in- 
fluence in after years of this College in the Colony. 
Prof. Beers* considers it somewhat significant of 
the difference between the Puritans of New Eng- 
land and the Cavaliers of Virginia, that while the 
Puritans on their own responsibility and at their 
own expense founded Harvard and Yale, William 
and Mary received an endowment from the crown. 
Very significant of this period of Colonial isolation 
is the fact that with their common English lan- 
guage and literary past there should have been so 
little in common between the writings of the people 
of New England and the people of the South. In 
this phase of development they seem to have had 
no influence whatever on each other. Nor is it 

♦Outline Sketch of American Literature, p. 13. 



12 Literature: in the South 

strange that it should be so. For it was a time of 
differentiation, of the building up of local institu- 
tions, and the crystallizing of local character. Years 
must pass before spirit of Puritan and spirit of 
Cavalier could meet. 

WRITINGS 01^ THIS PERIOD. 

Thomas Hariot. Report of the New Found Land in 
Virginia, 1588. 

George Percy (i 586-1 632). A Discourse of the 
Plantation of the Southern Colony of Vir- 
ginia. 

John Smith (1579-1631). True Relation, 1608. 
Description of New England, 161 6. New Eng- 
land's Trials, 1620. Accidence for Young 
Seamen, 1626. Generall Historie of Virginia, 
New England, and the Summer Isles, 1624. 
True Travels, 1630. Advertisements for In- 
experienced Planters of New England, 1631. 

William Strachey. A True Repertory of the Wracke 
and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, 1610. 
Historie of Travaille into Virginia Britannia. 

Alexander Whitaker (i 585-1613). Good News 
from Virginia, 1613. 

George Sandys (i 577-1644). Translation of Ovid, 
1622. 

John Hammond. Two Sisters, Leah and Rachel, 
1656. 

George Also p {162,^- ). Character of the Prov- 
ince of Maryland, 1666. 

Burwell Papers (1676). Printed by Mass. Hist. 
Society, 1814; again in 1866. 



Literature in the South 13 

Robert Beverly (i 670-1 735). History of the Pres- 
ent State of Virginia, 1705. 

William Stith (i 689-1 755). History of the First 
Discovery and Settlement of Virginia, 1745. 

John Lawson ( -1712). History of North 
CaroHna, 1714. 

William Byrd (1674-1744). History of the Divid- 
ing Line, 1728.* A Journey to the Land of 
Eden. A Progress to the Mines. Westover 
Manuscripts. 

James Blair {i6^6-iy^2>)' Sermons. State of His 
Majesty's Colony in Virginia. 

•Printed in 1841. 



14 LlTE^RATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH 



11. 

THE REVOI.UTIONARY PERIOD. 
I765-1815. 

After the close of the French and Indian War 
the colonists began to realize themselves to be the 
American people. Old barriers were giving way 
before the progressive advance of new, perhaps in- 
defined, influence of union in sentiment and interest. 
The fifty years following the victory of the English 
over the French cover the period of the American 
movement for liberty, the war of the Revolution, 
and the constructive movement resulting in the es- 
tablishment of the constitution, practically tested 
during the earlier presidential administrations. 

The Literature of the preceding period had been 
historical and descriptive with the definite purpose 
of making known the conditions of the life of the 
Colonists here. In these writings, local color is 
strong, and here, too, is the feeling which, for lack 
of a better term, we may call pride in the colony, 
developing later into State pride. When Colonel 
Byrd drew his ''Dividing Line," he felt that all of 
virtue lay on the Virginia side. In the earlier years 
of the movement we are about to consider — may I 
say the unconscious movement towards becoming 
one people, as well as the conscious movement to- 
wards becoming a free people ? — mental activity was 



Literature in the South 15 

expressed in terms of eloquence. These colonists 
loved liberty, and were determined to secure her 
blessings to themselves and to posterity. Their 
leaders spoke v^ith but one end in view to influence 
the minds of their hearers. This end was secured 
and a time followed when biographers, historians, 
above all, writers on constitutional law and govern- 
ment wielded their pens. 

Oratory is at a disadvantage when judged by suc- 
ceeding generations. Even when a speech had been 
fully and accurately reported, what can supply the 
living presence, the kindling eye, the impassioned 
voice, more than all, the interest of the living issue? 
All this must be left to the imagination. We are 
indebted to Wirt for having given us the substance 
of Patrick Henry's orations and for picturing to us 
the orator. Thus he writes of his first case : — "No 
one had ever heard him speak, and curiosity was on 
tiptoe. He rose very awkwardly, and faltered much 
in his exordium. The people hung their heads at so 
unpromising a commencement. * * * But these 
feelings were of short duration and soon gave place 
to others of a very different character. For now 
were those wonderful faculties which he possessed 
for the first time developed ; and now was witnessed 
that mysterious and almost supernatural trans- 
formation of appearance, which the fire of his own 
eloquence never failed to work in him. * * * 
His attitude, by degrees, became erect and lofty. 
The spirit of his genius awakened all his features. 
His countenance shone with a nobleness and 
grandeur which it had never before exhibited. There 
was lightning in his eyes which seemed to rivet the 
spectator. His action became graceful, bold, and 



i6 Literature in the South 

commanding ; and in the tones of his voice, but more 
especially in his emphasis, there was a peculiar 
charm, a magic, of which any one who ever heard 
him will speak as soon as he is named, but of which 
no one can give any adequate description." Henry's 
famous speech in the House of Burgesses, his 
speech at the opening of the Continental Congress, 
when he broke through the old Colonial barriers and 
cried, '*I am not a Virginian, I am an American," 
above all, his appeal to arms in 1775, have given 
him rank with the world's great orators. As he 
had dared declare in his first speech that the Vir- 
ginia Assembly alone had the right to tax Virgin- 
ians, so again in '75 he threw down the gauntlet to 
the British ministry, in the impassioned utterance, 
"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased 
at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Al- 
mighty God! I know not what course others may 
take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me 
death!" 

At Charlotte, North Carolina, May 20, 1775, 
Mecklenburg County declared independence of 
Great Britain. The brave Presbyterians of that sec- 
tion had suffered much from misgovernment, and 
the spirit of liberty was strong in them. Dr. Wm. 
Sloane* writes, "The focus of their social life was 
the town of Mecklenburg, where the leading spirit 
was Ephraim Brevard, who had graduated at 
Princeton in the stirring days of '68." The lead- 
ing men of the county had assembled at the call of 
Colonel Polk, who was at the head of the county 

♦The French War and The Revolution, p. 194. 



Literature: in the South 17 

militia, to discuss the grave issues of the time. 
While they were in session the news of the battle 
of Lexington was received. No more convincing 
proof was needed that the time for action had ar- 
rived. Dr. Brevard drew up a series of resolutions 
declaring absolute independence of Great Britain 
and urged their adoption. They were unanimously 
adopted. Read from the Court House door to the 
people without, the question was asked, "Are you 
all agreed?" and, as with one voice, the people cried, 
"We are all agreed!" The Declaration is briefly 
worded with a peculiar beauty of style that is worthy 
of note. The wrongs inflicted by Great Britain are 
comprehensively given in the one sentence that 
Great Britain had wantonly trampled on our rights 
and liberties, and inhumanly shed innocent blood 
of Americans at Lexington and Concord." The 
phrase, "free and independent" is used once, and 
again the phrase, "sovereign and self-governing." 
While a savage people may be free, a civilized peo- 
ple only may be sovereign. To be independent 
States may not always be a blessing, but to be a 
self-governing people is indeed a noble condition. 
There is a fitness in the beautiful old phrase, 
"under the power of God." 

Dr. Brevard wrote other political papers, but at 
the beginning of hostilities laid his pen aside, and 
offered his services to his country. He served as 
surgeon until his death (from fever contracted on 
a British prison ship at Charleston) just before the 
close of the war.* 



*A brother, Adam Brevard, a lawyer of satirical turn of 
mind, in March, 1777, published a poem of nearly 300 lines, 



1 8 Literature in the South 

With few exceptions, the verse of this period 
consisted of poHtical squibs, satires, and songs. 
Hewling's ''Hearts of Oak," written in 1775, 
is an exception, and may, with all its fault of tech- 
nique, be considered our first lyric of note. A still 
higher note is struck in the lines to Washington 
by the Roman Catholic priest, Wharton, of Mary- 
land, in which we have the strong phrase, "one 
truth erected trophy." 

In '76 the National Declaration, too well known 
for quotation to be necessary, was made. Jefferson, 
its author, the representative of the democracy of 
his time, again declared his political creed in his in- 
augural address, March 4, 1801. He taught in 
these and other writings that all men were created 
free and equal, and that powers belonged to the peo- 
ple. He defended the State governments as against 
the national power. He attacked the national ju- 



treating the Declaration with a humor of which the following 
lines are a specimen: — 

"When Mecklenburg's fantastic rabble, 
Renowned for censure, scold, and gabble. 
In Charlotte met for giddy council, 
To lay the constitution's ground-sill, 
By choosing men both learned and wise. 
Who clearly could with half-shut eyes, 
See millstones through or spy a plot, 
W^hether existed such or not; 
Who always could at noon define 
Whether the sun or moon did shine. 
And by philosophy tell whether 
It was dark or sunny weather, 
And sometimes, when their wits were nice, 
Could well distinguish men from mice, 
First to withdraw from British trust. 
In Congress they the very first 
Their independence did declare." 



Literature: in the South 19 

diciary and the national banks. He opposed tra- 
dition and convention. He held the will of the 
majority to be the law of society. Few men 
have exercised greater influence over their own 
and succeeding generations than he, though even his 
followers now may smile at his anxieties occasioned 
by the monarchical tendencies of Washington's 
levees, and may refuse to accept his criticism of 
Hamilton's financial policy. Jefferson was a stu- 
dent, a man of letters. Apart from his political 
writings, his "Notes on Virginia" have given him a 
place in Literature, while his letters from abroad 
are full of interest, showing the man of wide knowl- 
edge interested in scientific and social as well as 
political matters. In the "Notes on Virginia" there 
is a description of the passage of the Potomac 
through the Blue Ridge, truly beautiful and pic- 
turesque. "On your right comes up the Shenandoah, 
having ranged along the foot of the mountains an 
hundred miles to find a vent. On your left ap- 
proaches the Potomac in quest of a passage also. 
In the moment of their junction they rush together 
against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass it 
off to the sea. * * * But the distant finishing 
which Nature has given to the picture is of a very 
different character. It is a true contrast to the 
foreground. It is as placid and delightful as that is 
wild and tremendous. For the mountains being 
cloven asunder, she presents to your eye through the 
cleft a small catch of smooth, blue horizon at an 
infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, 
as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, 
to pass through the breach, and participate in the 
calm below." 



20 Literature: in the South 

Washington's papers and letters were plain, direct, 
and without literary pretension; but dignified in 
style, and marked by justness and wisdom. They 
do not unworthily represent their great writer. Our 
judgment of them like our judgment of their author 
rests upon that governing quality of his character, 
that pure and unselfish patriotism breathing through 
these writings as through his life. It is this quality 
that appeals to us to-day as it appealed to those of 
his own time, that compelled one who had borne him 
no love in life to cry when learning of his death 
that a leader in Israel had fallen. It is this quality 
that graces with noble dignity the Farewell Address 
and causes it to be revered by men of widely differ- 
ing opinions, for they recognize it as the expression 
of a pure, intelligent, and sane patriotism. 

The oft-quoted words, ''First in war, first in 
peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," 
were pronounced by Henry Lee, "Light-Horse 
Harry Lee," of Revolutionary fame, in his funeral 
oration on Washington. Lee wrote a History of 
the War in the South, not only accurate in state- 
ment and clear in style, but very interesting in the 
vivid presentation of facts. Mason Locke Weems, 
another Virginian of this period, for a number of 
years rector of Pohick Church, Mt. Vernon, is best 
known by his life of Washington. He also wrote 
the lives of Franklin, of Marion, and of Penn. It 
is to Weems that we owe the story of Washington 
and the little hatchet, which he held "too valuable 
to be lost, too true to be doubted," for he had it 
from an excellent lady who was a relative of the 
Washington family. Unfortunately Weems' very 
interesting narrative is not always justified by strict 



Literature in the South 21 

accuracy, and we can not feel that all his statements 
are "too true to be doubted." 

During the period we are considering a very 
brilliant group of men represent South Carolina. 
Notable among them were Henry Laurens, the 
Draytons, father and son, and David Ramsey, the 
historian. Laurens' services to the patriot cause are 
fully given in the larger histories of our country. 
His political papers, some of which have been pub- 
lished by the South Carolina Historical Society, are 
valuable to the student of history. The journal, 
written during his fifteen months' confinement in 
London Tower, has its touches of nature. "As I 
was entering," he writes,"! heard some of the people 
say, Toor old gentleman, bowed down with infirmi- 
ties. He is come to lay his bones here.' My reflec- 
tion was, 'I shall not leave a bone with you.' " Nor 
did he, though his health was so broken by the suf- 
ferings attendant upon his long confinement that he 
was unfitted ever after for the duties of active life. 

It was William Henry Drayton, Chief Justice of 
South Carolina, who in 1776 made a charge to the 
Grand Jury of Charleston District, declaring that 
George HL had endeavored to subvert the constitu- 
tion "by breaking the original contract between king 
and people," had violated fundamental laws, "and 
had withdrawn himself by withdrawing the con- 
stitutional benefits of the kingly office, and his pro- 
tection out of this country," and therefore, con- 
tinued Drayton, "the law of the land authorizes me 
to declare, and it is my duty boldly to declare the 
law, that George HL, King of Britain, has abdi- 
cated the government, and that the throne is thereby 
vacant; that is, he has no authority over us, and 



22 Literature: in the South 

we owe no obedience to him." Bold words these, 
yet it is not the boldness alone that impresses one. 
Common interests, a common danger, were making 
of the colonists one people. It was not Virginia, or 
North Carolina, or South Carolina, for whose lib- 
erty and happiness these men strove, but for the 
liberty and happiness of our country. 

David Ramsey, physician and patriot, was a native 
of Pennsylvania, but South Carolina was his adopt- 
ed home. He and Dr. Ephraim Brevard, author of 
the Mecklenburg Declaration, were friends, and in 
many respects their lives were similar. Both were 
educated at Princeton, both studied medicine, both 
early became prominent patriots in the beginning 
of the struggle, and served as surgeons in the South- 
ern army. Dr. Ramsey wrote — one wonders how 
in so active a life — not only political papers and 
orations in the stormy days, but medical works, a 
life of Washington, and a Universal History. He 
had the instinct of the historian. This with his 
accurate research, extensive learning, and refined 
literary taste, enabled him to write a history of his 
State which holds the interest as not all histories do. 
As his historical characters pass before us while we 
read, we feel that they are alive and that we know 
them. 

During the later years of this period, intellectual- 
ity found expression in theories of government and 
the unfolding of constitutional law. James Madi- 
son's chief work was in connection with the con- 
stitution, and the title, ''Father of the Constitution*' 
seems justly applied to him. Madison was pure in 
character, dignified even to severity in manner, but 
softening as he grew older, temperate almost to 



Literature in the South 23 

abstemiousness. His body servant said that he had 
never seen him in a passion, and had never seen him 
strike a slave, though he owned more than a hun- 
dred. He v^ould not even rebuke a slave in the 
presence of others. Though writing without a lit- 
erary purpose, his writings have a literary quality. 
He wrote with a definite purpose, expressing him- 
self with clearness and force. Before writing one 
of these remarkable political essays he had studied 
thoroughly the subject of government, and especially 
of confederacies in ancient and modern times. The 
^'Virginia Plan," introduced by Edmund Randolph, 
was Madison's work, submitted to his colleagues be- 
fore the meeting of the convention, and he was also 
the author of certain provisions not contained 
originally in that plan. His journal of the debates 
of the convention, afterwards published by Con- 
gress, is the chief authority for the proceedings of 
that body. The convention adjourned and Madison 
devoted himself to securing its ratification. Of the 
series of essays later published in book form under 
the title, ''The Federalist," Madison wrote tw^enty- 
nine; Hamilton wrote fifty-five; Jay, five; one or 
two were written jointly. These papers define re- 
publican government, the powers vested in the 
Union, and the relations between the Federal and 
State governments. The constitution was adopted. 
In the differentiation of parties that followed, Madi- 
son, influenced probably by Jefferson, his personal 
friend, allied himself with the Republicans, and be- 
came the author of the Virginia Resolutions. It has 
been suggested that his inconsistency was apparent 
rather than real, and that having given his adhesion 
to the Constitution, he logically desired a strict con- 



24 Literature in the South 

structlon to preserve the balance between the State 
and Federal governments. He was a scholar and 
thinker rather than man of action, and wrote of 
government better than he administered it. He was 
President during troubled times, and his fame rests 
not upon the fact that he was President, but upon 
this, that he did much to make clear the principles of 
constitutional government. 

A picturesque figure in politics is the witty and 
original John Randolph of Roanoke, descended in 
a direct line from Pocahontas. His addresses and 
speeches were, Paulding says, ^'direct as the arrow 
from the Indian bow." He does not belong alto- 
gether to this period, for he lived until 1833. In 
1829 he denounced the folly of those who believed 
they could make a Constitution "for all time." ''Can 
any one believe," he asks, ''that we, by any amend- 
ment of ours, by any of our scribbling on that 
parchment, by any amulet, by any legerdemain — 
charm — Abracadabra — of ours, can prevent our sons 
from doing the same thing — that is, from doing 
what they please, just as we are doing what we 
please ? It is impossible. Who can bind posterity ?" 
Randolph's step-father, St. George Tucker, was a 
man of decided literary ability, a noted jurist, and 
professor of law at William and Mary College. He 
wrote a commentary on the Constitution, and a 
dissertation on slavery, but the literary student asso- 
ciates rather with his name the gentle lyric, "Days 
of My Youth." 

John Marshall, of Fauquier County, Virginia, a 
soldier of the Revolution, a lawyer after the war, 
foreign minister, and for thirty-five years Chief 
Justice of the United States, is remembered not 



Literature: in the: South 25 

greatly for his life of Washington, but for his writ- 
ings on Federal Constitutions, and his Supreme 
Court decisions. He had the statesman's as well as 
judge's mind. Benton writes of his solid judgment, 
great reasoning powers, acute and penetrating mind. 
He had a lofty conception of judicial duty, was pure 
and just, and his place is with those who laid the 
foundations of our government. 

Like Randolph, Tucker, and Marshall, William 
Wirt belongs only partly to this period. Wirt was 
a native of Maryland, but removed, while a young 
man, to Virginia, and became identified with that 
State. He rose to great eminence in the practice of 
law, and in 181 7 was appointed Attorney-General 
of the United States, which office he held for twelve 
years, after which he practiced law in Baltimore 
until his death, 1834. Wirt's speeches are a part of 
American eloquence. He wrote the best life ever 
written of Patrick Henry. In all that he wrote the 
polished elegance, joined with an old-fashioned 
formality, reflected the manner of the Southern gen- 
tleman of the old school. Besides his life of Henry, 
and a number of addresses, Wirt wrote ''The Rain- 
bow," a series of essays, and "Letters of a British 
Spy," a series of letters giving account of various 
matters. "The Old Bachelor" was a series of letters 
by Wirt, Tucker, and others. It is in the "Letters of 
a British Spy" that we find the remarkable account 
of "The Blind Preacher." By common consent, 
Wirt was for years regarded as the representative 
man of letters in Virginia, his influence in main- 
taining a standard of formal elegance being not 
easily measured. 



26 Literature: in the SoUTtt 



WRITINGS O? the: period. 

Brevard. Mecklenburg Declaration, 1775. Instruc- 
tions to Delegates, 1775. 

Hewling. Hearts of Oak, 1775. 

Wharton. Lines to Washington, 1776. 

Jefferson (1743-1826). National Declaration of 
Independence, 1776. Notes on Virginia. Auto- 
biography. Letters. Reports, Messages, and 
Addresses. 

Washington (i 732-1 799). State Papers, Addresses, 
Letters. 1 

Lee (1756-1818). History of the War in the 
South. 

Weems (1760- 1825). Life of Washington. Life 
of Franklin. Life of Marion. Life of Penn. 
The Philanthropist. 

Laurens (i 756-1 782). Political Papers. Confine- 
ment in the Tower of London. 

Wm. Henry Drayton (1742-1779). Political Ad- 
dresses and Papers. 

Ramsey (i 749-181 5). Orations. History of South 
Carolina. Life of Washington. Memoir of 
Martha L. Ramsey. Universal History Ameri- 
canized. Medical Essays. 

Madison (1751-1 83 6). Debates of the Convention, 
1789. Papers in *'The Federalist." 

Randolph (1773- 1833). Addresses. Letters to a 
young Relative. 

St George Tucker (1752-1828). Commentary on 
the Constitution. Dissertation on Slavery. Let- 
ter on Alien and Sedition Laws. Poems. Sa- 
tires. (Unpublished) Dramas. 



Lite:rature: in the South 27 

Marshall (i 755-1 835). Life of Washington. Su- 
preme Court Decisions. Writings on Federal 
Constitution. 

Virt (1772- 1 834). Addresses. Letters of a Brit- 
ish Spy. Rainbow. Life of Patrick Henry. 
Essays contributed to the "Old Bachelor.'* 



ft8 LlT^RATUR^ IN THE) SoUTH 



III. 

TH^ PERIOD 0]? DE:VE:i.OPM^NT. 
1815-1860. 

The nineteenth century had opened. American 
life had become more complex. It is a less simple 
matter — at least in the earlier half of the period — 
to ascertain the dominating characteristics of our 
Literature. Oratory held its place. The science of 
constitutional law, of government, of politics, were 
studies of vital interest, and, for the most part, men- 
tality expressed itself in their terms. But there were 
other expressions of the intellectual life and more 
purely literary. In the continuity of this life, how- J 
ever, certain elements remained unchanged. Before ] 
the time of Simms and of Poe, our Literature wasi 
almost entirely an amateur Literature. Our early 
writers had been men busy in the building of col-' 
onies, the securing of freedom, the proving a theory 
of government, the recording of events. Literature' 
had been with them a means, not an end as it waS) 
a means, not an end in later years with Calhoun,, 
and Legare, and Stephens, and Davis. Then law- 
yers, as for instance, Wirt and Tucker, found recre- 
ation in writing. There was no thought of the lit- 
erary calling; but the ability to write elegant essays: 
»— though the elegance had often an Addisonian re- 



Literature: in the South 29 

flection — and to compose verses, was undoubtedly an 
accomplishment, so much, no more. Almost with- 
out exception, every author in the South was a 
lawyer. Another point must be observed. Before 
the time of Simms, our Literature was the produc- 
tion almost entirely of the Aristocrats of Southern 
society. How shall these facts be accounted for ? 

Little need to dwell on the conditions of social 
life in the old South. Much has been written from 
various standpoints of that life and of the eco- 
nomic, industrial, and political conditions as well, 
but in certain points, however interpreted, all are 
agreed. The planter, the large land-owner and 
slave-holder, held the power of influence and con- 
trol in the making and wielding of law, as well as 
in influencing opinion and custom. The power of 
wealth also was with the planters. There was a 
charm about that old plantation life, with its ease 
and hospitality and generosity. For its men and 
women had not only very noble and lovable personal 
qualities, but dignity and social grace. 

The position of the old-time Southerner on edu- 
cation has not been sufficiently emphasized. His 
respect for it was profound. His sons were 
thoroughly trained in classical knov/ledge, the 
foundations being laid by private tutors or school 
masters, and the work continued at college and 
university. The Southerner of social position had 
his library as a matter of course, a library of stand- 
ard works, and the old English classics were read 
and re-read and quoted as they are not generally 
read and quoted now. Prince Achille Murat wrote, 
"that he found in Charleston the best and most cul- 
tured society he had ever met on either side of the 



30 Literature in the South 

Atlantic."* There is no reason to suppose him a 
partial judge. So much for the education of the 
higher classes. But what of the poor man's chil- 
dren? In most cases there was scarcely a 
chance of education for them. The "poor 
schools'* v/ere "poor" in more than one 
sense, and even these were few. The awak- 
ening of the social responsibility to the matter of 
public education was slow and long deferred. Yet 
it should not be supposed that the Southern planter 
and lawgiver opposed the idea of general education 
so much as that he simply did not entertain it. It 
was incongruous that education should be bestowed 
upon the children of the poor and middle classes. 
And so, as rank was established, so were certain 
occupations regarded as fitting rank. A gentleman 
must be a planter, lawyer, physician, or, perhaps, a 
clergyman. When the lawyer lived upon his planta- 
tion and administered justice, his life was not un- 
like that of the English Squire. 

In most of the writing of this period will be ob- 
served the influence of England. Political indepen- 
dence had been achieved. Intellectual independence 
was longer deferred. But the time was near at hand 
when individuality should assert itself. 

The earlier Southern statesmen had appealed to 
the national consciousness. Patrick Henry had de- 
clared himself not a Virginian, but an American. 
Madison's best work had been in laying firm the 
foundations of government. Washington had ut- 
tered his warning against founding parties on geo- 
graphical discrimination. But a change was now 

■■ ■ ■ — — ■ ^^»—i— 

♦"America and The Americans," 



Literature in the South 31 

taking place. Sectionalism was to be reckoned with. 
The last great statesman of any section or party, 
whose broad patriotism refused to be limited by 
sectional lines, was Henry Clay, of Kentucky. "I 
know no North, no South, no East, no West," he 
declared. 

Clay had risen from the people. He said of him- 
self : "I emigrated from Virginia to the State of 
Kentucky * * * as an orphan boy who had not 
yet attained the age of majority; who had never 
recognized a father's smile, nor felt his warm 
caress; poor, penniless, without the favor of the 
great, with an imperfect and neglected education, 
hardly sufficient for the ordinary business and com- 
mon pursuits of life." The sheer force of his char- 
acter and ability was felt almost from the beginning 
of his young manhood. Entering public life in 1803 
as a member of the Virginia Legislature, three years 
later he entered the United States Senate, in 1811, 
the House of Representatives (over which he was 
six times elected speaker), and again in 1848, when 
party strife was bitter, he was unanimously elected 
to the Senate. 

As Secretary of State and as a diplomat he proved 
himself peer of men trained to diplomacy. And 
through all the half-century of public service, he was 
loved as few men are, for, genial and warm-hearted, 
he bound friends to him by strongest ties. There 
was a power of charm in his personal character as 
truly his own as the eloquence that calmed party 
passion. 

It would be unjust to judge of Clay as an orator 
by his reported speeches. We must consider their 
influence on those who heard them and take the 



3^ Liti:raturij in mt South 

testimony of those hearers. Robert C. Winthrop, 
who had heard the greatest orators of the day in 
America and England, said that he had never heard 
Mr. Clay's eloquence surpassed, if he had ever heard 
it equalled. His voice was musical, clear, and far- 
reaching. Resolute and dignified, he was endowed 
with a genius for leadership. "This leadership," 
says Mr. Schurz, "was not of that mean order which 
merely contrives to organize a personal following: 
it was the leadership of a statesman zealously striv- 
ing to promote great interests." Nor is it too much 
to say that his influence and the memory of his 
abiding love for the Union had power after his 
death with the people of Kentucky when section was 
arrayed against section. 

In South Carolina the grave and pure Calhoun, 
from 1811 until his death in 1850, stood as the 
expounder of theories of constitutional government, 
that were the result of deep and original thought. 
Few will dispute his claim to distinction as the most 
original political thinker of America. "Whether," 
says Professor Trent, "passionless logical analysis is 
ever an essential quality of true literature is a mat- 
ter on which opinions will differ ; but until the ques- 
tion is settled in the negative, Calhoun's claims to 
be considered a writer of marked force and original- 
ity can not be ignored. * * * It is true also that 
much of the interest attaching to his works is his- 
torical rather than literary in character; but when 
all allowances are made, it will be found that the 
"Disquisition on Government" must still be regarded 
as the most remarkable political treatise our country 
has produced, and that the position of its author as 
the head of a school of political thought is com- 



Literature in the South 33 

manding and, in a way, unassailable."* Calhoun's 
log^c saw fallacy in the right of petition to Congress 
since the sovereignty resided in the people of the 
States. "Who," he asked, "ever heard of a sov- 
ereign petitioning a subject? The very essence of 
a petition implies a request from an inferior to a 
superior." To the student of character as well as of 
history there is a terrible pathos in the position of 
Calhoun — his unfaltering belief in the instrument 
that he so clearly analyzed, his refusal to see that 
one generation can not bind another. Dignified in 
manner, irreproachable in private as in public life, 
austere as a Roman of old when Rome was at its 
best, this pure patriot was held in honor even by his 
opponents. 

Opposed to Calhoun stood Benton, a native of 
North Carolina, but from early manhood a citizen 
of Missouri, thirty years a member of the Senate, 
and author of "Thirty Years in the United States 
Senate." This book not only gives much informa- 
tion concerning public matters and the debates upon 
them, but familiar pictures of the men and times, 
sometimes with genuine vividness. His account of 
the duel between Randolph and Clay is characteristic 
of the times when the old "code of honor" pre- 
vailed. Benton called to see Randolph on the night 
before the duel was to take place, and he told Ran- 
dolph of his visit the previous night to Clay, of Mrs. 
Clay's tranquility, and of the quietly sleeping child, 
and of his reflection how different all might be the 
next night. Randolph replied quietly, "I shall do 
nothing to disturb the sleep of the child or the repose 

♦Library of The World's Best Literature. Calhoun. 



34 Lite:rature: in the: South 

of the mother." On the next day, Benton con- 
tinues, ''I saw him (Randolph) receive the fire of 
Mr. Clay, saw the gravel knocked up in the same 
place, saw Mr. Randolph raise his pistol, discharge 
it in the air; heard him say, 'I do not fire at you, 
Mr. Clay,' and, immediately advancing and offering 
his hand. He was met in the same spirit. They met 
half way, shook hands. ]\Ir. Randolph saying jocose- 
ly, 'You owe me a coat, Mr. Clay,' to which Mr. Clay 
promptly and happily replied, 'I am glad the debt is 
no greater.' * * * Qn Monday the parties ex- 
changed cards, and social relations were formally 
and courteously restored. It was about the last 
high-toned duel I have witnessed, and among the 
highest-toned that I have ever witnessed." 

From the statesman to the historian is an easy 
transition. Some good State histories were written 
during this period. Rev. Francis Lister Hawks, first 
president of the University of Louisiana, three times 
elected to a bishopric, and three times declining the 
election, was distinguished equally as a preacher 
and as writer on ecclesiastical history. In the in- 
tervals of his busy life he undertook to write the 
history of North Carolina, his native State, bring- 
ing to the work trained faculties and habits of full 
and careful research. In Louisiana, Charles Etienne 
Arthur Gayarre was also writing history, finding 
inspiration in the romantic legends of the old days. 
He wrote in both French and English, but his style 
is French rather than English. These volumes of 
Gayarre's are filled with romance, life, color, so that 
Maurice Thompson has said, "one feels that the 
writer has been hampered here and there by the 
temptation to be a romancer rather than remain a 



Literature in the South 35 

historian, and one does not experience any surprise 
at this in view of the profusion of startHng and 
strange incidents." Besides his historical works, 
Gayarre wrote dramas, essays, and addresses, all 
the while making untiring efforts to promote an in- 
terest in the study of history. Pickett in Alabama, 
Howison in Virginia, and others, also wrote State 
histories, and the present student of history owes 
much to those early workers in this line. 

A curiosity in the way of literature is the auto- 
biography of the famous pioneer and hunter, David 
Crockett. Soldier in the War of 181 2, member of 
the Tennessee Legislature for two years, and of 
Congress for four years, one of the heroes of the 
Alamo, his varied career ended in 1836. He said 
that he could not see why anything in his book 
should be criticised, for spelling was not his trade, 
and he ^'hadn't time to learn grammar/' and as for 
the arrangement of the book, he had never written 
one before, and never read many; — in his opinion 
big men had "more important matters to attend to 
than crossing their t's and dotting their i's, — and 
such like small things." One motto, at least, in this 
remarkable book has become proverbial : *'Be sure 
you are right, and then go ahead." 

A time had come when fiction was to be reckoned 
with. Many novels were written and read and 
forgotten. Others have their claims in any study 
of literature. In 1834 William Carruthers pub- 
lished "Cavaliers of Virginia," followed by two 
other books, "Knights of the Golden Horse- 
Shoe," and "Kentuckians in New York." Of the 
same character was St. George H. Tucker's "Hans- 
ford, a Tale of Bacon's Rebellion." Mrs. Oilman, 



36 Lite:ratur^ in th^ South 

of Charleston, wrote ''The Southern Matron," an 
unambitious Httle volume thoroughly delightful in 
its pictures of domestic life in the old days.* To 
our list of fiction writers must be added the names 
of Kennedy and of Cooke. In the limits of this 
chapter, the work of Simms can scarcely be touched 
upon. Singular enough was the political novel by 
Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, of Virginia, ''The Parti- 
san Leader, a Tale of the Future." It was pub- 
lished in 1836, and in 1861 was reprinted in New 
York to show that a plot to destroy the Union had 
existed since 1836! A few lines from the "explana- 
tory introduction" to the New York edition of 1861 
will show the effect of political excitement upon lit- 
erary interpretations and historical judgment in 
those stormy days. The book is declared to supply 
"irrisistible evidence" of the existence of the great 
conspiracy. "Composed in the form of a novel, its 
twin object was to excite the South to rebellion, and 
to teach how to make that rebellion successful. It 
was 'a tale of the future,' and most wonderfully is 
that future fulfilling its predictions. * * * It is 
remarkable that the revolution thus skillfully pro- 
jected in 'The Partisan Leader' is nowhere in the 
whole book sought to be justified on the grounds 
of alleged aggressions by the North in respect to 
slavery." Then follows a quotation from the "Na- 
tional Intelligencer," January 25, 1851, alluding to 
this novel as having furnished "a key to some of the 
profoundest intricacies of American politics." The 
book that was considered of such import twenty-five 

*Dr. Goulding, of Georgia, made his contribution to litera- 
ture "The Young Marooners," still one of the most popular 
of boys' books, and its sequel "Marooner's Island." 



LlT^RAtUR^ IK THE SouTH 37 

years after its original publication could hardly have 
been a commonplace one, whatever opinion may be 
held of the writer's attitude toward the government 
in his day ; and, certainly, in the early '6o's it must 
have seemed almost literally prophetic. 

The story goes that Kennedy was with Thackeray 
while ''The Virginians" was running as a serial. A 
new chapter (Chapter IV., Vol. 11.) was needed. 
"I wish you would write it for me," the great novel- 
ist said to his American friend, who forthwith wrote 
the chapter describing Warrington's escape and jour- 
ney home through the Cumberland country. One 
feels that it must have been good to know the man 
whom Thackeray could trust to write a chapter, 
though it is doubtful that he wrote it. Born in Balti- 
more in 1795, John Pendleton Kennedy was well 
educated, and, after the fashion of most young 
Southerners of ambition and culture, entered the 
legal profession. He bore creditably his part in 
public life, serving as member of the State Assembly 
and afterwards of Congress. Under Fillmore he 
was Secretary of State. The political aspect at that 
time was anything but pleasing, yet in the far East 
Perry's peaceful mission to Japan was accomplished, 
and in the far Arctic regions Kane was seeking 
wider knowledge. Kane, by the way, testified to his 
regard for Kennedy by naming a newly discovered 
channel in his honor. As he was the friend of 
Thackeray and of Kane, so he was the friend of Poe, 
who needed his friendship as Thackeray and Kane 
never could. This was Kennedy, and something of 
his genial spirit finds its way into his books, "Swal- 
low Barn," ''Horse Shoe Robinson," and "Rob-of- 
the-Bowl." Besides these he wrote a memoir of 



38 Literature in the South 

Wirt, satires, and political addresses. When he died, 
in 1870, he bequeathed his library and manuscripts 
to the Peabody Institute. 

''Swallow Barn" is a connected series of character 
sketches rather than a novel. It is to be regretted 
that this book with its pictures of the cheery, easy, 
old days is not better known in the South to-day. 
Here are the typical men and women of the old 
Southern life drawn with skillful delineation and 
affectionate humor. The master of "Swallow Barn" 
is Frank Meriwether, of good cheer and easy tem- 
per, "with a magic fulness which betokens condition 
in the world, and a heavy bunch of seals, suspended 
by a chain of gold, jingling as he moves, pronounc- 
ing him a man of superfluities. * * * His house 
is open to everybody, as freely almost as an inn. 
But to see him when he has the good fortune to pick 
up an intelligent, educated gentleman, and particu- 
larly one who listens well! * * * Then, again, 
it is very pleasant to see Frank's kind and consid- 
erate bearing towards his servants and dependents.*' 
He does not know one note from another, but he is 
enraptured when his good dame plays on the harpsi- 
chord at night for the children to dance, and when 
she sings an old-fashioned ballad, he stands by her 
side, nodding his head as if he were keeping time. 

"Horse Shoe Robinson," a tale of the Tory 
ascendency in South Carolina, has for its leading 
character a Revolutionary hero, whom Kennedy had 
met once in South Carolina, and it is a spirited, well- 
conceived narrative. Simms wrote a novel, "Par- 
tisan Warfare," having the same theme, but the two 
books are as different as the personality of the au- 
thors. 



LitE:RAYuRE: IN the: South 39 

John Esten Cooke, a younger brother of Philip 
Pendleton Cooke, was another Virginian who divid- 
ed his energies between law and letters. He was 
born in 1830 and lived until 1886, yet seems alto- 
gether to be of the day and generation of the old 
South. His books tell of the life and manners of 
the old days in Virginia. His style is flowing and 
spirited, and his pictures are life-like. He was a 
young man when he wrote ^'Leather Stocking and 
Silk" and ^'Virginia Comedians." The courtly 
folk of the past live again in these books. We meet 
the stately dames with their sparkling eyes, their 
powdered hair, and their velvet gowns ; and we meet 
the influential planters, in their holiday clothes, pow- 
dered hair in queues, yet none too proud to mingle 
with their humbler neighbors, when they go to the 
Jamestown races. And there are younger men quite 
vain of their horsemanship at these same races, and 
pretty maidens flirting with them. And there, too, 
are the plainer folk of the yeomanry. Cooke paints 
them all with a delightful exuberance of fancy. 
Cooke called Simms his master, but it may be ques- 
tioned whether Simms wrote any book so good as 
''Virginia Comedians." 

The war came on. Cooke entered the Confed- 
erate Army, served on Jackson's staff, after Jack- 
son's death on J. E. B. Stuart's staff, then as In- 
spector General of the Horse Artillery. When the 
war ended there was little money in the South for 
buying books, but Cooke went on writing them. He 
wrote a history of Virginia which has the charm of 
a romance, biographies of Lee and Jackson, "The 
Wearing of the Gray," ''Hammer and Rapier." He 
wrote "Surrey of Eagle's Nest," "Stories of the Old 



40 Lite:ratur^ in rn% South 

Dominion/* "Fairfax," and other stories of less 
note. But Cooke belonged to an earlier day. The 
fashion of writing had changed, and Cooke could 
not write according to the new fashion. He was 
pained by certain harsh criticisms, but was not one 
to cease work for that. And when at last he did 
lay down his pen, more than thirty years after he 
had written his first novel, more than twenty years 
after Lee's surrender, men knew that he had fought 
a good fight and kept the faith as became the brave, 
true-hearted gentleman that he was, who on more 
than one field had met defeat but never dishonor. 

A few words must be said of the two chief hu- 
morists of this period, for there was a strong sense 
of humor shown by a certain group of writers. In 
1853 Judge Baldwin, of Alabama, published "Flush 
Times in Alabama," reproducing the life of the 
reckless, lavish, and new Southwest, later to be fol- 
lowed by "Party Leaders" and other writings. 
Probably the most widely read Southern book of 
humor was "Georgia Scenes : Incidents in the First 
Half-Century of the Republic," published in 1835. 
The author was Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, of 
Georgia, at one time member of the Legislature, 
then Judge of the Superior Court, but later turning 
to the church, becoming a minister in the Methodist 
Church, and president successively of Emory Col- 
lege, Georgia; Centenary College, Louisiana; and 
the University of Mississippi. His book is full of 
genuine humor, and has held its own in spite of the 
author's efforts to suppress it, when in later life, he, 
now a serious minister, felt that he had done wrong 
in writing a humorous book. But "Georgia Scenes'* 
could not be suppressed. Though the humor is oc- 



Literature in the South 41 

caslonally broad, it is on the whole clean, so that 
the keenest regret one need feel in reading it is that 
it should ever have caused a pang to the tender con- 
science of its genial author. 

The literature of science in the South during these 
years had one great name — that of Maury. Maury 
entered the United States Navy in 1825, in 1837 ^^^ 
made Lieutenant, and two years later lamed for life, 
after which he devoted himself to science and the 
scientific investigation of naval subjects, being ap- 
pointed Superintendent of the Hydrographic Office, 
and later of the National Observatory at Washing- 
ton. In 1854 he wrote to the Secretary of the Navy 
with reference to the line of deep sea soundings 
from the shores of Newfoundland to Ireland: — 
"This line of deep sea sounding seems to be decisive 
of the question as to the practicability of a sub- 
marine telegraph between the two continents, in so 
far as the bottom of the sea is concerned." Four 
years passed, and Cyrus Field said of the Atlantic 
Cable, now successfully laid, *'Maury furnished the 
brains." 

Maury wrote a series of geographies, works on 
navigation, studies of magnetism, of the circulation 
of the atmosphere, and his ''Physical Geography of 
the Sea," which last has been translated into many 
languages. It was upon the reading of this work 
that Humboldt was so impressed that he said that 
Maury had founded a new science. Maury's name 
was known wherever science was known, and not 
only our own but foreign governments and scientific 
societies made glad recognition of his merit. At 
the beginning of the Civil War, he entered the Con- 
federate service, serving first at Richmond, after- 



42 LlT^RATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH 

wards as Naval agent in Europe. When the war 
ended he accepted a position in Maximilian's cabinet, 
and after the overthrow of that government went to 
England, returning to Virginia in 1868 to take the 
chair of Physics in the Virginia Military Institute. 
It is true that Maury's scientific attainments alone, 
however great, would not entitle him to a place in 
literature. There was, however, a literary value in 
what he wrote, the style, even of his school text 
books, being not only strong and clear, but of re- 
markable beauty, revealing a love of nature and ap- 
preciation of the beautiful not always the portion 
of the scientist, while breathing through all is the 
sincere piety that looks "through Nature up to Na- 
ture's God." These qualities are beautifully pre- 
sented in his "Physical Geography of the Sea," as 
notably in the treatment of the law of compensation 
in the atmosphere. 

We have seen how little poetry had been written 
in the South. Political squibs and satires, transla- 
tions, and society verses, very few of them all sur- 
viving, make up the sum with a very few exceptions, 
as Wharton's "Tribute to Washington," and Tuck- 
er's "Days of My Youth." In 1813, Washington 
Allston wrote "The Sylphs of the Seasons." His 
patriotic ode, "America to Great Britain," though 
written earlier, was published about the same time. 
A year later ardent patriotism expressed itself in 
"The Star Spangled Banner," written by Francis 
Scott Key during the bombardment of Ft. McHenry. 

Stedman says, and justly, that an anthology of 
poetry written in the South before the war would be 
a very slender volume, but speaks with praise of cer- 
tain "Lovelace lyrics." These lyrics are, as a rule, 



Literature in the South 43 

the single poems by which their authors rose to 
imaginative heights above the commonplace. 
Strange for men to whom the writing of poetry was 
simply incidental, their technique is almost faultless. 
One of these poems, and one filled with a melan- 
choly beauty, is Wilde's "My Life is Like the Sum- 
mer Rose." 

Wilde was born in Ireland, but reared in Georgia, 
where he studied law and was admitted to the bar. 
He represented Georgia, and afterwards became 
professor of constitutional law in the University of 
Louisiana. A brother had served in the Seminole 
War, and Wilde was inspired by his adventures to 
write an epic poem, of which all that remains is the 
song mentioned. It was inscribed to the beautiful 
^'Florida White," daughter of General Adair, of 
Kentucky, whose home, Casa Bianca, near Talla- 
hassee, was noted for hospitality and charm. It was 
a far cry from Florida to Greece, but Wilde's song 
was translated into Greek and announced as a newly 
discovered Ode of Alcseus. The claim was dis- 
proved without great difficulty, and Wilde received 
his own. 

Another well-nigh perfect poem is "The Health," 
by Edward Coate Pinckney, of Baltimore. Nearly 
as exquisite, but with a pathos, is Cooke's "Florence 
Vane." George Denison Prentice, author of a vol- 
ume of verse, as well as a life of Henry Clay, and 
founder of the Louisville Journal (later the Courier 
Journal) is a writer usually claimed as Southern 
ion the ground that his literary work was mainly 
[done in the South. As a matter of fact he was a na- 
tive of New England, removing to Kentucky when 
le was twenty-eight years of age. Influential in 



44 Liti:rature in thd South 

politics, and a social favorite, with a wit that il* 
luminated argument, though certainly not a South- 
ern writer, he was a literary force in the South. His 
"Closing Year" is his best known poem. Its melan- 
choly tone is in strong contrast with the pungent 
wit of the collection of paragraphs known as 'Tren- 
ticiana." 

Another statesman in literature, and he typically 
Southern, is Henry R. Jackson, of Georgia, a promi- 
nent lawyer and later Judge of the Superior Court. 
He was in the diplomatic service at the Court of 
Austria from 1853 to 1858, and in 1885 was ap- 
pointed Minister to Mexico. He served through two 
wars; as Colonel of a Georgia regiment in the 
Mexican War, and as Brigadier-General in the 
Civil War. He was a man of cultured literary 
taste, and especially interested in the history and 
literature of his own State. He published a volume 
of verse, *'Tullulah and Other Poems" in 1851. 
Perhaps he wrote nothing better than "The Red 
Old Hills of Georgia," now a favorite "State song," 
and breathing the State pride now fully devel- 
oped ;— . 

"The red old hills of Georgia! 

So bold and bare and bleak, 

Their memory fills my spirit 

With thoughts I can not speak. 

They have no robe of verdure, 

Stript naked to the blast; 

And yet of all the varied earth, 

I love them best at last. 
****** 

The red old hills of Georgia! 



Literature in the South 45 

Where, where upon the face 
Of earth is freedom's spirit 
More bright in any race? 
In Switzerland and Scotland 
Each patriot breast it fills, 
But sure it blazes brighter yet 
Among our Georgia hills!'* 

Among other writers of verse were: Dr. John 
Shaw, of Maryland; James Matthews Legare, of 
South Carolina; Alexander Meek, the friend of 
Simms ; and James Barron Hope. Albert Pike was 
a New England teacher who made the South his 
home, and in Southern fashion followed the legal 
profession, writing verse as **a thing apart.'* Edgar 
Allen Poe will be treated in another chapter, and is 
but mentioned here as possessing the originality and 
individuality that belongs to no school or group. 

It may not be amiss to note how soon in Southern 
literature the mocking bird came to his own. Wilde 
sang : — 

"Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe, 
Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school, 
To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, 
Arch-mocker and mad Abbot of Misrule ! 
For such thou art by day — but all night long 
Thou pourest a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain 
As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song 
Like to the melancholy Jacques complain. 
Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong, 
And sighing for thy motley coat again.'* 

Meek's conception is different: — 



46 Literature in the South 

"See him swinging in his glory, 
On yon topmost bending limb ! 
Carolling his amorous story, 
Like some wild crusader's hymn! 
Now it faints in tones delicious 
As the first low vow of love ! 
Now it bursts in swells capricious, 
All the moonlit vale above! 
Listen, dearest, listen to it ! 
Sweeter sounds were never heard ! 
'Tis the song of that wild poet 
Mime and minstrel — Mocking Bird." 

And Pike, also, has his lines to "the glorious mocker 

of the world," and asks "Where 
Among the sweet musicians of the air. 
Is one so dear as thou to these old solitudes ?" 

A literary magazine, "The Southern Literary 
Messenger," was established at Richmond in 1834. 
The best writers in the South supported it, and it 
compared not unfavorably with other periodical lit- 
erature of the kind at that time, though it was main- 
tained at the cost of struggle and sacrifice. Other 
magazines were established, all having virtually the 
same fate, death, after a struggle more or less pro- 
longed. 1828 saw the first issue of "The Southern 
Review," a quarterly, modeled on the style of the 
English Reviews, and published at Charleston. 
Among its contributors were Cooper, Grimke, Mc- 
Cord, and others. Elliot and Legare devoted them- 
selves to it with zeal and energy, Legare sometinies 
supplying nearly half the contents of a number. And 
it was a thoroughly creditable publication, though 



Literature in the South 47 

to the modern reader the articles seem unnecessarily 
long and heavy. 

WRITINGS OF THE PERIOD. 

Henry Clay (i 777-1 852). Speeches. 

John C. Calhoun (1782- 1850). Speeches. Dis- 
quisition on Government. State Papers. 

Thomas Hart Benton (i 782-1 858). Thirty Years 
in the United States Senate. Abridgement of 
the Debates of Congress. Examination of the 
Dred Scott Case. 

Francis Lister Hazvks (i 798-1 866). History of 
North Carolina. Theological Works. 

Charles Etienne Arthur Gayarre (1805-1895). His- 
toire de la Louisiane. Romance of the History 
of Louisiana. Louisiana as a French Colony. 
History of the Spanish Dominion in South 
Carolina. History of Louisiana to 1861. 
Philip n. of Spain. Fernando de Lemos. 
Aubert Dubayet. School for Politics (Drama). 
Dr. Bluf (Drama). Addresses. 

Albert James Pickett (1810-1858). History of Ala- 
bama. 

Robert Reid Hozvison. Biographies of Morgan, 
Marion, Gates. History of Virginia. History 
of the War. History of the United States. 

John Hill Wheeler ( 1806-1882). History of North 
Carolina. 

William Carruthers (i 800-1 850). Novels. 

St. George H. Tucker (1828-1863). Commentaries 
on Law. Hansford, a Tale. 

John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870). Tales, Es- 
says. Satires. Addresses. 



48 LiTKRATURS: IN the: SoUTH 

John Esten Cooke (1830-1886). Novels. Biog- 
raphies. Histories. 

Caroline Gilman. A Southern Matron. A New 
England Housekeeper. 

Joseph G. Baldzvin (1811-1864). Flush Times in 
Alabama and Mississippi. Party Leaders. 

Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (i 790-1 870). Geor- 
gia Scenes. 

Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806- 1873). Physical 
Geography of the Sea. Geographies. Naviga- 
tion. Magnetism. Amazon and Atlantic 
Slopes. Wind and Current Charts. Sailing 
Directions. 

St. George Tucker (1752-1828). Poems. Com- 
mentary on the Constitution. Dissertation on 
Slavery. 

George Tucker (1775-1861). Essays. Works on 
Political Economy. 

Beverly Tucker {ly^/^-i^^i). Tales. Essays. Le- 
gal Works. The Partisan Leader. 

Richard Henry Wilde (1789- 1847). Poems. 

George Denison Prentice (1802-1870). Poems. 
*Trenticiana." Addresses. 

Henry Roote Jackson (1820-1898). Poems. 

John Shaw (1778-1809). Poems. 

James Matthews Legare (1823-1859). Poems. 

James Barron Hope (1829-1887). Poems. 

Alexander Meek (1814-1865). Poems. 

Albert Pike (i 809-1 891). Poems. 

John James Audubon (1780-1851). Birds of Amer- 
ica. American Ornithological Biography. 
Quadrupeds of North America. Journals. 
Floridian Episodes. 

Edgar Allen Poe {iSog-iS4g). Poems. Tales. 



I^iTERATuRE IN mt South 49 

William Gihnore Simms (1807- 1870). Poems, 
Novels. Biographies. Histories. Address. 
Political Articles. 

Hugh Szvinton Lcgare (1797-1843). Political Arti- 
cles. Address. Criticism. 

Humphrey Marshall (1756-1841). History of 
Kentucky. 

James Gaffys McGregor Ramsey (1796-1884). 
Annals of Tennessee. 



50 Literature in the South 



IV. 

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 

On the fourth day of May, 1780,* when our war 
for independence was drawing to a close, there was 
born in Louisiana a child destined to stand in later 
years as one of the most romantic figures in our 
literature, to lead men from the artificial standards 
of his age to delight in the simple beauties of Na- 
ture, to become our first ornithologist, John James 
Audubon. 

His father was a Frenchman, at one time a sol- 
dier of the French army serving in America under 
Lafayette; the mother was a Spanish Creole of 
Louisiana, wealthy and beautiful. When Audubon 
was very young he was sent to France to be edu- 
cated, distinguishing himself more in music and 
fencing than in mathematics, and for loving fields 
and woods more than the school-room. 

When he was very young, his father encouraged 
him to observe Nature, closely pointing out to him 
the beauty of the bird's plumage, their change of 
plumage, nests and haunts, migratory habits, ex- 
pressions of pleasure, or consciousness of danger. 
The love of birds was always a passion with him. 
*'They soon," he says, in later years, "became my 

*This date is sometimes disputed, 



Lite:rature in the South 51 

playmates, and before my ideas were sufficiently 
formed to enable me to estimate the difference be- 
tween the azure tints of the sky, and the emerald 
hue of the bright foliage, I felt that an intimacy with 
them, not consisting of friendship merely, but bor- 
dering on phrenzy, must accompany my steps 
through life; and now, more than ever am I per- 
suaded of the power of those early impressions. 
They laid such a hold of me that when removed 
from the woods, the prairies, and the brooks, or shut 
up from the view of the wide Atlantic, I experi- 
enced none of these pleasures most congenial to my 
mind. * * * ]s[o roof seemed so secure to me 
as that formed of the dense foliage under which 
the feathered tribe were seen to resort, or the caves 
and fissures of the mossy rocks to which the dark- 
winged cormorant and curlew retired to rest, or to 
protect themselves from the fury of the tempest. 
* * * A vivid pleasure shone upon those days 
of my early youth, attended with a calmness of 
feeling. * * * j gazed in ecstasy upon the 
pearly and shining eggs, as they lay imbedded in 
the softest down, or among dried leaves and twigs, 
or were exposed upon the burning sand, or weather- 
beaten rock of our Atlantic shore. I was taught to 
look upon them as flowers yet in the bud." 

Later came the longing for the impossible, to 
possess the productions of nature with life. When 
a bird was dead, pleasure in its possession was 
blunted. His father showed him a book of illus- 
trations, and though this did not give him what he 
wanted, it gave him the desire to copy Nature. His 
first drawings were bad, producing, as he says, 
"a race of cripples." But the worse his drawing, 



52 LiTEjRATUREi IN THE) SoUTH 

the more beautiful the original seemed, and the more 
determined was Audubon to attain accuracy. Every 
year he made hundreds of drawings, to be destroyed 
on each recurring birthday. To have been torn 
from the work, he thought would have been as 
death. 

While pursuing his education in France, he was 
taught drawing by David, but though he worked 
industriously he felt that — that "eyes and noses of 
Giants and the heads of horses represented in an- 
cient sculpture" were not the ends of expression for 
him, and it was with joy that he returned to Amer- 
ica to occupy a farm of his father's on the Schuyl- 
kill River, where he would be free again to roam 
through fields and woods studying birds in their 
homes. His life at Mill Grove, as the farm 
was called, was a happy one, with means and 
leisure for the pursuits congenial to him. "Hunt- 
ing, fishing, drawing, music," he writes, "oc- 
cupied every moment; cares I knew not and 
cared naught about them. I purchased excel- 
lent and beautiful horses, visited all such neigh- 
bors as I found congenial spirits, and was as 
happy, as happy could be." Further he continues: 
— "I had no vices, but was thoughtless, pensive, lov- 
ing, fond of shooting, fishing, and riding, and had a 
passion for raising all sorts of fowls. It was one 
of my fancies to be ridiculously fond of dress; to 
hunt in black satin breeches, wear pumps when 
shooting, and to dress in the finest ruffled shirts I 
could obtain from France." In later years, how- 
ever, no one could accuse him of dandyism. With 
all his love of company and lightness of heart, he 
was singularly abstemious, until his wedding day 



Lite;rature: in the South 53 

had never drunk a glass of wine or any spirits, 
seldom tasted meat, and was strong, active, and 
energetic. A friend described his room at Mill 
Grove as a sort of museum, the walls festooned 
with strings of bird's eggs, and almost covered with 
drawings of birds, while stuffed animals of many- 
kinds were ranged on the chimney piece and the 
shelves about the room. 

Yet Audubon's heart was not all given to birds, 
for he fell in love with Miss Lucy Bakewell, daugh- 
ter of one of his neighbors, whom he married on 
April 8, 1808, the marriage having been delayed for 
several years on account of the youth of both parties. 
Both before and after his marriage Audubon en- 
tered into various commercial enterprises, but he 
was no business man and failed in all, even losing 
the fortune his father had left him. With a part- 
ner, Rozear, he opened a store at Louisville, after- 
wards at Hendersonville, at St. Genevieve, then 
again at Louisville and Hendersonville. He wrote 
in his journal that his partner remained behind the 
counter getting rich — though we feel the riches ex- 
isted to a large degree in imagination — while he 
roamed through the country with his gun and was 
happy. 

All the while his collection of drawings w^as in- 
creasing, and when the ornithologist Wilson visited 
Louisville seeking subscribers to his own work, he 
was astonished to see Audubon's draw^ings. Wil- 
son's visit made a great impression on the American 
Naturalist, whose warmth and generosity of feel- 
ing are shown in his account of the interview. 
Audubon was about to subscribe to the work, when 
his partner said in French that his, Audubon's draw- 



54 Literature in the South 

ings were far better, and that he knew as much of 
the habits of American birds. At the request of 
Mr. Wilson, Audubon showed him his portfolio of 
drawings. ''His surprise appeared great," says 
Audubon, ''as he told me he had never had the most 
distant idea that any other individual than himself 
had been engaged in forming such a collection. He 
asked me if it was my intention to publish, and when 
I answered in the negative his surprise seemed to 
increase. And, truly, such was not my intention; 
for, until long after when I met the Prince of 
Musignano in Philadelphia, I had not the least idea 
of presenting the fruits of my labors to the world. 
Mr. Wilson now examined my drawings with care, 
and asked if I should have any objection to lending 
him a few during his stay, to which I replied that 
I had none. * * * j presented him to my wife 
and friends, and, seeing that he was all enthusiasm, 
exerted myself as much as was in my power to pro- 
cure for him the specimens which he wanted. We 
hunted together and obtained birds we had never 
before seen." Audubon offered to open a corre- 
spondence that might benefit both, and proposed that 
Wilson should publish the result of Audubon's re- 
searches, simply on condition that credit be given 
him, but Wilson did not respond to either proposal. 
Not the least interesting portions of Audubon's 
writings are those descriptive of his wanderings in 
the West, his voyages up and down the Ohio. He 
was a close observer, and had the faculty of accurate 
as well as picturesque description. Once, and only 
once, he was in danger of death from the hand of 
man; he felt the terrors of the Kentucky earth- 
quake, and of a storm almost as terrible, and ex- 



Literature in the South 55 

penenced the dangers of floods, and of the attacks 
of wild beasts. He was at home in the settler's 
cabin and delighted in calling himself the American 
AVoodsman. 

During his stay at Hendersonville he had an ex- 
perience that tested his earnestness of purpose. 
After having labored for years, Audubon found that 
in one night two rats had destroyed his collection 
of drawings. 'The burning heat," he says, ''which 
rushed through my brain was too great to be en- 
dured without affecting the whole of my nervous 
system. I slept not for several nights, and the days 
passed like days of oblivion, until the animal powers 
being recalled into action by the strength of my con- 
stitution, I took up my gun, my note-book, and my 
pencils, and went forth to the woods as gayly as if 
nothing had happened." It was three years before 
the portfolio was again filled. 

Through all the changes and chances of his life 
his study of birds was the absorbing passion. He 
travelled through the wildest regions of the South 
and West, seeking specimens, while seeking a means 
of livelihood. His study under David in drawing 
the human figure now proved of very practical ser- 
vice, for he could at any time meet necessary ex- 
penses by drawing portraits, said to be very life- 
like. On his trips up and down the Mississippi, he 
would sometimes pay his passage by drawing a por- 
trait of the captain, and a portrait of the shoemaker 
was once given in exchange for a pair of boots. At 
Natchez he learned how to paint in oils, giving in 
exchange for the tuition lessons in chalk drawing. 
Sometimes he gave drawing lessons, sometimes 
acted as private tutor, once taught a dancing class. 



56 Lite:rature: in the: South 

The story goes that once, while giving a dancing 
lesson, he became so exasperated at the awkward- 
ness of his pupils, that for the rest of the lesson he 
danced alone to the music of his own violin, 
thereby greatly delighting his pupils. That dancing 
class proved a profitable undertaking. 

Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano, had, in 
1824, suggested to Audubon the publication of his 
work, and, with this end in view, in 1826, after a 
tour of the Northern States, the ornithologist sailed 
for England. Now, for a time, his usual buoyancy 
of spirit failed, for he imagined that all he met were 
possessed of talents superior to his own. Fortunate- 
ly this mood of depression was transitory, for on 
reaching England he found that his talents were 
estimated far more highly than they had been in 
America. "I am cherished by the most noted people 
in and around Liverpool," he wrote to his wife, and 
have obtained letters of introduction to Baron Hum- 
boldt, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Humphrey Davy, Sir 
Thomas Lawrence, Hannah More, Miss Edgeworth, 
and with your distinguished cousin, Robert Bake- 
well." His drawings were exhibited at the Royal 
Institution, men of genius recognized his claims, and 
learned societies extended the right hand of fellow- 
ship to him. At Edinburgh he made definite ar- 
rangements for publication, and opened the sub- 
scription list. 

Of all the distinguished men he met. Sir Walter 
Scott seems to have made the greatest impression 
upon him. He was at work in his study one day, 
when Captain Basil Hall came in to tell him that 
Sir Walter Scott wished to meet him at once. "My 
heart trembled," Audubon wrote in his journal, "I 



LlTKRATUR^ IN THE SoUTH 57 

longed for the meeting, yet wished it over. Had 
not his wondrous pen penetrated my soul with the 
consciousness that here was a genius from God's 
hand? I felt overwhelmed at the thought of meet- 
ing Sir Walter, the Great Unknown. We reached 
the house, and a powdered waiter was asked if Sir 
Walter were in. We were shown forward at once, 
and entering a very small room Captain Hall said: 
'Sir Walter, I have brought Mr. Audubon.' Sir 
Walter came forward, pressed my hand warmly, and 
said he was 'glad to have the honor of meeting me.' 
His long, loose, silvery locks struck me; he looked 
like Franklin at his best. He also reminded me of 
Benjamin West; he had the great benevolence of 
William Roscoe about him, and a kindness most 
prepossessing. I could not forbear looking at him, 
my eyes feasted on his countenance. I watched his 
movements as I would those of a celestial being. 
* * * There was much conversation. I talked 
but little, but, believe me, I listened and observed." 
Sir Walter Scott's journal of the same date, Jan- 
uary 22, 1827, has an account of the visit and his 
impressions of the visitor: — "He is an American 
by naturalization, a Frenchman by birth; but less 
of a Frenchman than I have ever seen — no dust, or 
glimmer, or shine, about him, but great simplicity 
of manners and behaviour; slight in person and 
plainly dressed; wears long hair, which time has 
not yet tinged; his countenance acute, handsome, 
and interesting, but still simplicity is the predomi- 
nant characteristic. I wish I had gone to see his 
drawings; but I had heard so much about them that 
I resolved not to see them — 'a crazy way of mine, 
your honor.' " It may here be said that he did go 



I 



58 LlTliRATUR^ IN the: SoUTH 

to see the drawings later, and considered them ac- 
curate, but, on account of the aim at perfect ac- 
curacy, rather stiff. 

Audubon soon became a great favorite in society, 
being called upon and entertained by the learned and 
the fashionable. He was less happy at these gath- 
erings than in the wilds of the forest, shrank from 
social prominence and thought he should faint when 
his health was proposed at a banquet. At a meet- 
ing of the Royal Society, knowing that he had been 
proposed for membership in the society, he felt un- 
comfortable, "and would gladly have been hunting 
on the Tawapatee Bottom." He hoped he would 
not become a ''conceited fool," though he had gone 
back to the "early days of society and fine dressing, 
silk stockings and pumps, and all the finery with 
which I made a popinjay of himself in youth." 
When he went to London, however, his friend, Basil 
Hall, persuaded him to have his long hair cut and 
to wear a suit of black clothes. Therefore he went 
about in the great city attired, to use his phrase, 
*'like a mournful raven." 

He met with much encouragement in London, but 
was growing homesick. The note of the blackbird 
in Regent's Park carried his mind to the woods of 
home and revived his spirits. His impressions of 
men he met are recorded very frankly in his jour- 
nal. He found Francis Jeffrey serious, shrewd, and 
cunning, the volubility of whose conversation was 
rather displeasing. He was profoundly impressed 
by Sidney Smith's preaching, which made him 
smile, then made him think. "He pleased me at 
times by painting my foibles with due care, and 
again I felt the color come to my cheeks as he per- 



Literature: in the South 59 

trayed my sins." He liked Bewick, the engraver, 
''wondered" — without further comment — at the in- 
sincerity of Sir Thomas Lawrence, and found the 
Earl of Kinnoul, who sent for him to say that his 
birds were all alike and his work worthless, the 
rudest man of England. 

From England he went to France for two months, 
where he met the leading artists and men of science, 
among them Cuvier and Geoffrey St. Hilaire. 
Cuvier, especially, showed him much kindness, and 
reported favorably upon his work to the Academy 
of Sciences, declaring it ''the most magnificent mon- 
ument which has yet been erected to ornithology." 
Returning to London, Audubon hastened forward 
the engraving and coloring of his plates, collected 
some money, paid his debts, and leaving his inter- 
ests in the hands of an agent, returned the next 
April, 1829, to America. 

Some months were spent in the w^oods of the 
Northern States. His energy was unbounded. He 
wished for another body and eight pairs of hands. 
He accumulated many drawings : birds, nests, eggs, 
plants, and flowers. He seldom saw any human be- 
ings except in the house where he lodged. He rose 
before light and worked till dark. In the fall he 
went South to join his family from whom he had 
been long separated. After a short stay at Bayou 
Sara, he set out, his wife accompanying him, for 
Louisville, from there to Cincinnati, and thence to 
Washington, where, exhibiting his drawings to the 
House of Representatives, he received their sub- 
scriptions as a body. There were visits to Balti- 
more and New York, then, in April, he and his wife 
sailed for England. 



6o Literature in the South 

It was during this second sojourn in England 
that Audubon secured the services of MacGiUivray 
to aid him in getting his manuscript ready for the 
press. !Mrs. Audubon wrote to her sons that noth- 
ing was heard but the sound of the pen, for Audubon 
w^as at work before dawn, and took no rest all day. 
She, herself, was making a copy of the manuscript 
so as to secure copyright in America. The first vol- 
ume of pictures was published during the summer 
of 1 83 1, and by 1839 ''The Birds of North Amer- 
ica,"' an elephant folio, and *'The Ornithological 
Biography" had been published. 

Audubon did not remain in England all this while, 
but left his affairs there in charge of his son Victor, 
and, after the issue of the first volumes, returned to 
America. Leaving his wife and younger sons at 
Louisville, he went to Florida, where he spent the 
winter of i83i-'32. The sketches, "The Live 
Oakers," "Deer Hunting," "The Wreckers," "The 
Turtles," "Spring Garden," and otiiers, tell of his 
Floridian experiences. A visit to Charleston result- 
ed in tlie acquaintance, which ripened into a life- 
long friendship, with the Rev. John Bachman. It 
came to pass later that his two sons, John and 
Victor, married the two daughters of Dr. Bachman. 
It had been Audubon's plan to keep with the birds in 
their migrations from the Tortugas to Canada, and 
though delayed in the execution of his plan, he did 
explore Maine, New Brunswick, in tlie summer of 
1832, and Labrador the next season. 

The winter of '33 and '34 w^as again spent in 
the South at the home of the Bachmans. There, 
undisturbed by the political strife that filled the air. 
he drew and wrote, learned of birds new to him, or 



LrrBaATtTRB rx the So^;rH 



•• '^v;:^ :;uH not be .... , ure visits t.> 

/v ^land alternating with e ns in America. 

-" ''* a visit to Tex.' -. . "^tic de- 

- Of ♦'f'-^ presii^.er.- ... .str^n. 

Ay during- the winter ot r<^36-'7 

.^ . Bachrr.an began the studies result- 

. -- Quadrupeds of N'orth America," die 

of which was published ir ' ind 

work. The second and th: - . . .ines 

•vere vr^miy the work of his aona, John and Victor, 

^"^ *'"" '-—-'- of this work he went to the far 

: months' trip, of which he has left 

'-■ Missouri River Joomals. Before 

i spent m^any ni^ts alone m, the 

forests or in Indian camps, had hunted buffalo with 

the red men. - - *' : - lor^ regions where the foot of 

white men - - trod But when a man enters 

.'lips are not as easily borne as they 

- ' • ■ . ' - ind Audubon was affected by the 

exposure a=: in earlier davs he would not have be- 

' ' 'e, 

of 1843 ^« returned home, having par- 

.e on Manhattan Island, now known as 

-k. Though sixty- four or five years of 

'- ed often fourteen hours a day on the 

for his CEihusiasm 
-:/ for work. 
His remain:-^ years were passed in serene hap- 
piness,^ His wife, children, and grandchildren were 
wWi htm, friends gathered about him, and strangers 
'.m. Thus his life continued until its peace- 
*^ 1 ; : J ^°^ ^^' ^^S^- His wife, whose faith in 
his ^exBos and symp^y in hfs work had stood the 



62 Litp:rature: in itut South 

test of all discouragements and difficulties, was ever 
devoted, and all who were with them were im- 
pressed by their mutual tenderness. 

For all his shyness in company, Audubon loved 
the company of his fellowmen, and he was ever 
gentle in his judgments. When treated ungenerous- 
ly or discourteously, he was grieved rather than em- 
bittered, and he never lost faith in his kind. Yet 
there were times when he could be angry, though 
he did not cherish resentment He says of himself 
that he was "warm, irascible, and sometimes vio- 
lent." He used to ridicule his early vanity and 
foppery. Others tell of his unconscious greatness, 
his self-forgetfulness and child-like simplicity. "His 
self-forgetfulness," wrote one who visited him at 
his home on the Hudson, "was very impressive. I 
felt that I had found a man who asked homage for 
God and Nature and not for himself. The uncon- 
scious greatness of the man seemed only equalled 
by his child-like tenderness." Parke Godwin 
wrote of his sincerity and frank cordiality. A 
sweet, simple piety pervaded his life. From a child 
the beauties of Nature had led his thoughts to God, 
and he was undisturbed by any conflict between re- 
ligion and science. He prayed aloud every night be- 
fore retiring, as he had done when a child at his 
mother's knee. Such was the man Audubon. 

In estimating Audubon's work, we must first con- 
sider him as an artist, for he drew the birds before 
he wrote of them. His work was appreciated first 
in Europe, where its appearance was greeted with 
an immense sensation. There it was recognized as 
introducing a new era in art and science. Hereto-, 



Literature in the South 63 

fore the birds and animals had in general atta'ned 
but secondary excellence, and that rather as acces- 
sory to classical art. But Audubon used illustrative 
art in its relation to Natural History. In making 
his illustrations he chose the scene most expressive 
of the life and nature of his subject, so as to form 
a complete episode of which the form and sequence 
should be apparent. He would represent the bird 
on the tree or shrub most affected for nesting or 
feeding, and would picture also the natural enemy, 
or the prey. Different views of size, marking, form, 
and plumage were show^n in the groups. The ac- 
curacy of his drawing was remarkable. While he 
was at work upon them Cuvier was introducing 
comparative anatomy into the definitions of Natural 
History, but before knowing of it scientifically, 
Audubon had in the proportions of his drawings 
practiced upon Cuvier's theory, while giving life-like 
beauty to his figures. Mr. Burroughs, it is true, 
thinks that Audubon has given too dramatic a char- 
acter to a few demure or slow-moving birds, re- 
flecting his own French vivacity. Sir Walter Scott, 
on the other hand, as may be remembered, con- 
sidered that on account of the aim at perfect ac- 
curacy the drawings were a little stiff. 

So at one was he with his feathered friends that 
he could not write their biography without writing 
his own. His life was not apart from theirs. Mr. 
Burroughs has pointed out how largely he drew his 
similes from the animal world. Thus he says, "I 
am as dull as a beetle," during his enforced stay in 
London. While he was showing his drawings to 
Mr. Rathbone, he says: *'I was panting like the 
winged pheasant." At a dinner in some noble house 



64 Liti:rature: in rut South 

in England he said that the men servants "moved as 
quietly as killdeers." On another occasion, when the 
hostess failed to put him at his ease: "There I 
stood, motionless as a heron." Such instances 
abound in his writings. Writing of a journey to 
Scotland, he described the three other coach pass- 
engers and himself sitting in silence, "like so many 
owls of different species, as if afraid of one an- 
other;" a feeble old nobleman was "weaker than a 
newly-hatched partridge." 

The prevailing characteristic of his literary style 
is a most charming simplicity. The picturesqueness 
and vividness of his drawings are here also. His 
method of study was not that of the scientist, for 
it was Nature rather than science — if such a dis- 
tinction can be made — that he loved, and with him 
knowledge was ever the minister of love. A few 
sentences from his description of the humming-bird 
may give a slight idea of his word-painting: — 

"Its gorgeous throat in beauty and brilliancy baf- 
fles all competition. Now it glows with a fiery hue, 
and again it is changed to the deepest velvety black. 
The upper parts of the delicate body are of re- 
splendent changing green; and it throws itself 
through the air with a swiftness and vivacity hard- 
ly conceivable. It moves from one flower to an- 
other like a gleam of light, upwards, downwards, 
to the right, to the left." 

As to the value of his work, let him be judged 
by his peers. Wilson, whom none will accuse of 
too great enthusiasm in his appreciation, said that 
Audubon's character was what might have been 
expected from the author of such a work, brave, 
enthusiastic, self-sacrificing, and capable of heroic 



Literature: in the South 65 

endurance. Cuvler pronounced "The Birds of 
North America" the most magnificent monument 
that art had ever erected to ornithology. And now 
Burroughs: — "He had the heavenly gift of en- 
thusiasm — a passionate love for the work he set 
out to do. He was a natural hunter, roamer, 
woodsman; as unworldly as a child, and as simple 
and transparent. We have had better trained and 
more scientific ornithologists since his day, but none 
with his abandon and poetic fervor in the study of 
birds." 

CHRONOLOGY. 

1780 — May 4 — John James La Forest Audubon, 
born at Mandeville, La. 

1797 — Returned to America after some years in 
France. 

1805-6 — Again visited France. 

1808 — April 8 — Married to Lucy Bakewell. 

1808-1819 — Unsuccessful business undertakings at 
Louisville, Hendersonville, and St. Gene- 
vieve, 1 81 9. Business career abandoned. 
Undertakes Taxidermy at Cincinnati. 

1820 — Left Cincinnati. Returned to New Orleans. 

1822 — Went to Natchez. Taught drawing at Wash- 
ington, Miss. Learned oil painting. 

1824 — ^Visit to Philadelphia. 

1826 — ^Went to Europe with a view to publishing 
his drawings. 

1827 — Prospectus of "Birds" issued. 

1828 — Visit to Paris. 

1829 — Return to America. Further exploration and 
study. 



66 Literature in the South 

1830 — Return to London with his family. 
i830-'39 — ''Birds of North America'* published. 
i83i-'39 — "American Ornithological Biography" 

published. 
1 83 1 — Return to America. 
i832-'3— Study of birds in Fla., S. C, N. E. States, 

Labrador and Canada. 
1835 — ^Visit to Edinburgh. 

1836 — Return to New York. Exploration. Study. 
1837 — Last visit to London. 
1840 — Return to America. 
1842 — Purchase of home in New York — "Minnie's 

Land," now Audubon Park. 
1843 — Yellowstone River Expedition. 
1846 — First Volume of "Quadrupeds" published. 
1848 — "Quadrupeds," and "Biography of American 

Quadrupeds," published. 
185 1 — ^January 27 — Death at home, New York. 



LlT^RATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH 6/ 



KDGAR AIvIvEN PO^. 

The subject probably of more discussion than any 
other American writer, harshly criticised and bitter- 
ly maligned by some, endowed with more than mor- 
tal attributes by others, startling in his originality, 
secure in his fame, stands Edgar Allen Poe in his 
loneliness. 

Not only are there differing opinions of his 
character and work, but even as to the section of 
country that shall claim him as its own. Was Poe 
a Southern poet? Trent* declares the claim of the 
South to Poe "not unimpeachable." Whitef pro- 
nounces him "the completest literary exponent of 
the South, in its passionateness and insubordination ; 
his wretchedness breaking forth in fitful, sardonic 
laughter; his intemperance and pessimism." Beers 
deems him a Southerner, "at least by race and 
breeding," but finds "nothing distinctively Southern 
about his peculiar genius."^ 

As for the poet's parentage, his father was David 
Poe, Jr., of Maryland, who, in 1805, married Eliza- 
beth Arnold Hopkins, an actress. Beverly Tucker 

♦Life of Simms, p. 44. Note. 

fPhilosophy of American Literature. 

^Outline Sketch of Amerigan Literature, p. 220. 



68 Lite:ratur^ in rut South 

had known her as a girl, and described her as very 
beautiful, ''with something of the sprite" about her. 
The grandfather of the poet was David Poe, the 
Revolutionary hero at whose grave Lafayette knelt, 
kissing the sod and murmuring "Ici repose un coeur 
noble." 

Born in 1809, left an orphan while very young, 
adopted by the wealthy Mr. Allen, of Richmond, 
after the years of his indulged but misguided child- 
hood, expensive but unwise education, on account 
of his follies or excesses disowned by Mr. Allen, 
he was thrown upon his own resources, and in 1827 
he began the literary life by the publication of his 
first volume of poems. It was printed in Boston, 
and on the title page were the words "By a Bos- 
tonian." 

Young as he was, Poe had been writing verses for 
years. Professor Joseph H. Clarke, whose pupil he 
was in Richmond, said that while other boys wrote 
mechanical verses as tasks, Poe wrote genuine 
poetry. The lines, ''To Helen," published later, but 
having their source in these early years, have a sim- 
plicity of grace and beauty approaching classic per- 
fection of form. The poem w^as inspired by Mrs. 
Helen Stannard, the mother of one of Poe's school- 
mates. Her sweet graciousness and beauty so im- 
pressed the passionate-natured boy that in after 
years he spoke of his love for her as *'the one 
idolatrous and purely ideal love" of his youth. The 
simple serenity of the poem is in marked contrast 
to the later expressions of regret and sorrow usually 
taken as typical of the writer's mental attitude. 

To sum briefly the external events of his literary 
life, the first volume of poems was followed in 1829 



LiTHRATURi: IN THE SoUTH 69 

bv a second, and in 1831 by a third. He was for 
a while editor of the Southern Literary IMessenger, 
then of Graham's Magazine, and later was con- 
nected with the Evening Mirror, Broadway Jour- 
nal, and Godey's — doing for all brilliant but under- 
paid work. His first real success came in 1833, 
when his **MS. Found in a Bottle" was the winning 
tale in a competition for $100.00, offered by a Balti- 
more periodical. This was fortunate in more ways 
than one, for it proved an introduction to John P. 
Kennedy, who was ever afterwards his loyal friend. 
It was Kennedy who secured him employment on 
''The Southern Messenger," and afterwards the 
editorship. 

The severity of Poe's literary criticism, his ridi- 
cule of pretended learning, and general charges of 
plagiarism, brought him little love from the writers 
of the commonplace. Yet, though his grim humor 
and savage methods of attack were doubtless irritat- 
ing to his victims, it must be owned that on the 
whole he did perform a needed service to American 
letters at that time. With some reservations, time 
has for the most part sustained his criticisms, for 
there was force behind them, and Poe's artistic 
perceptions were too fine to be disregarded. One 
regrets his bitterly inappropriate attacks on the 
gentle, noble Longfellow, then a: now, the best 
loved author in America, and who himself knew no 
bitterness. Here is a mild specimen of Poe's criti- 
cism: — "Mr. Bryant is not all a fool. Mr. Willis 
is not quite an ass. Mr. Longfellow zi'ill steal, but 
perhaps he cannot help it (for we have heard of 
such things), and then it must not be denied that 
nil tetigit quod non ornavit," 



70 Lite:ratur^ in th^ South. 

Poe's tales, with intensity of imagination and 
weird mysticism, mysterious fascination and terror, 
application of analysis to the solution of intricate 
problems, and treatment of intangible horror have a 
rank peculiarly their own. In certain of his narra- 
tives he anticipated the fashion of scientific conceit 
followed later by Jules Verne, in others the solution 
of such intellectual puzzles or problems as delight 
Gaboriau, Conan Doyle, or Wilkie Collins. Com- 
parison with these will show Poe the master. "A 
Descent Into the Maelstrom" is simply a story of 
adventure, strong in detailed realism, its interest in 
no way depending upon the representation of char- 
acter or manners. "The Purloined Letter," has lit- 
tle adventure, but is strong in analytical power. Dr. 
Edward Everett Hale, Jr.,* considers "The Gold 
Bug" a greater story than either of the two men- 
tioned, "and more characteristic of Poe, for while 
the others show us one side of his genius only, this 
shows us two." Of still another character are the 
tales of romantic horror, such as "The Fall of the 
House of Usher," and Ligeia. 

It is with reference to this last group that certain 
critics have compared Poe to Hawthorne, finding 
Poe the inferior and on no higher moral plane than 
Charles Brockden Brown. Such criticism is want- 
ing in acute discrimination, and is scarcely just. 
Both Poe and Hawthorne treat of the weird, but 
with a difference, and that not of degree, but of 
kind. Hawthorne unfolds the spiritual tragedy. 
His fine imagination pictures the soul allegory. His 

♦Introduction to Stories and Poems, p. x. Standard Litera- 
ture Series. •> 



Lite:rature: in the South 71 

place IS his own. But in what writing of Brown is 
the Cosmic terror so reahzed, so possessing in its 
might as in that solemn, highly imaginative produc- 
tion, ''The Fall of the House of Usher?" And is 
there anything in common between Brown's artisti- 
cally defective romances of horror and Poe's tales, 
thrilling the reader with the perception of the in- 
tangible — anything besides recognition of the qual- 
ity of fear? 

In 1844 Poe removed to New York. The next 
year "The Raven" was published. No poem by 
an American author had ever received such imme- 
diate admiration as this did, both here and abroad. 
Mrs. Browning wrote of it : — "This vivid writing, 
this power which is felt, has produced a sensation 
here in England. Some are taken by the fear of it 
and some by the music." It was published in "The 
Evening Mirror," in advance of publication from 
the American Review, Poe receiving the sum of 
ten dollars for it. Years later, when an inscription 
was wanted for the Baltimore monument to Poe, 
Lowell suggested these lines: — 

"Caught from some unhappy master whom un- 
merciful Disaster 

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one 
burden bore, — 

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden 
bore 

Of never, — never morel" 

In his "Philosophy of Composition," Poe ex- 
plained how the poem had been systematically con- 
structed according to a deliberate plan, the word 



72 LlT^RATUR^ IN THE) SouTH 

"nevermore" selected as the refrain, and the num- 
ber of Hnes decided upon. It may be of interest to 
read the following comment of Griswold's: — "He 
seemed, except when some fitful pursuit subjugated 
his will and engrossed his faculties, always to bear 
the memory of some controlling sorrow. The re- 
markable poem *The Raven' was probably much 
more nearly than has been supposed, even by those 
who were intimate with him a reflection and echo 
of his own history." 

While in Philadelphia and New York, Poe came 
in contact with men of culture and talent, the asso- 
ciation with whom doubtlessly influenced the devel- 
opment of his genius. He attended many literary 
gatherings, being often accompanied by his "child- 
wife," the frail, beautiful Virginia Clemm. She 
was his cousin, and he had married her in Baltimore, 
1835. Such a man as Poe would be noted 
at any gathering. Dr. Griswold* says of his 
conversation, that it was at times almost supra- 
mortal in his eloquence. His voice was modu- 
lated with astonishing skill, and his large, vari- 
ably expressive eyes looked reposed or shot fiery 
tumult into their's who listened, while his own 
face glowed, or was changeless in pallor, as his 
imagination quickened his blood or drew it back 
frozen to its heart. His imagery was from the 
world which no mortal can see but with the vision 
of genius. Suddenly starting from a proposition, 
exactly and sharply defined, in terms of utmost sim- 
plicity and clearness, he rejected the forms of cus- 
tomary logic, and by a crystalline process of accre- 

*Sketch in "Tribune." 



tlTE:RATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH 73 

tion, built up his ocular demonstrations in forms 
of gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur, or in those of 
the most airy and delicious beauty, so minutely and 
distinctly, yet so rapidly, that the attention which 
•was yielded to him was chained till it stood among 
his wonderful creations, till he himself dissolved 
the spell. * * *'' 

In 1845, Poe published a collection of his poems 
which included most of his best work, and exem- 
plified all of his poetic theory. Yet so slight was 
the practical appreciation of his genius and labor 
that, within a few months, Willis issued his appeal 
for aid for "one of the finest scholars, one of the 
most original men of genius, and one of the most 
industrious of the literary profession of our coun- 
try, whose temporary suspension of labor, from 
bodily illness, drops him immediately to a level with 
the common objects of public charity." 

For sorrow and want were pressing sore upon 
Poe. His wife was the victim of consumption, and 
Poe, who with all his failings loved her with all the 
passionate tenderness of his nature, was forced to 
see her suffer, not for comforts only, but, too often, 
for the very necessaries of life. In January, 1847, 
she died. After her death Poe was never really 
himself again. He tried to re-establish himself in 
the literary world, but with little success. During 
the year 1849, the last of his life, he wrote "Annabel 
Lee," published in the New York Tribune Octo- 
ber 9. 

A comparison of this poem with Browning's 
"Evelyn Hope" would be of great value in studying 
the attitude of the American and of the English 
poet with reference to immortality of love and life. 



74 Lite:rature: in the: South 

In 1848, "Eureka: A Prose Poem," was pub- 
lished. It was the chief work of these last years, 
a physical explanation of the universe based on 
metaphysical law. "What I have propounded," he 
wrote to a correspondent, "will (in good time) 
revolutionize the world of Physical and Metaphysi- 
cal science. I say this calmly, but I say it." In the 
preface to the work he says: 'What I here pro- 
pound is true: — therefore it cannot die: — or if by 
any means it be now trodden down so that it die, 
it will 'rise again to the Life Everlasting.' Never- 
theless it is as a Poem only that I wish this work 
to be judged after I am dead." But the work of 
science could not be judged as a poem, or the poem 
as a work of science, and "Eureka" has not yet 
revolutionized "the world of Physical and Meta- 
physical science," though it is of great importance 
in the study of Poe's mental history. 

On October 7, 1849, ^^^^ days before the publica- 
tion of "Annabel Lee," Poe died in Baltimore. The 
stimulants to which he had resorted, with privation 
and suffering, had done their work. 

Soon after his death, Griswold's unsympathetic 
reflections upon his character,* brought a response 
from the gentle and generous Willis, which may 
be the key to the different interpretations of Poe's 
character by his contemporaries. Poe, when first 
employed by Willis as critic and sub-editor, was 
living at Fordham with his wife and her mother, 
but was at his desk in the newspaper office from 
nine in the morning until the paper went to press, 
always punctual and industrious, though report had 

*Home Journal. 



Literature: in the South 75 

led his employer to expect some capriciousness in 
attention to duty, with an occasional scene of dif- 
ficulty. ''With his pale, beautiful, and intellectual 
face as a reminder of what genius was in him," 
writes Willis,* "it was impossible, of course, not to 
treat him always with deferential courtesy, and to 
our occasional request that he would not probe too 
deep a criticism, or that he would erase a passage 
colored too highly with his resentments against so- 
ciety and mankind, he readily and courteously as- 
sented. ♦ * * Through all this considerable 
period, we had seen but one presentment of the man 
— a quiet, patient, industrious, and most gentlemanly 
person, commanding the utmost respect and good 
feeling by his unvarying deportment and ability. 
Residing, as he did, in the country, w^e never met 
Mr. Poe in hours of leisure; but he frequently 
called on us afterwards at our place of business, 

*A portion of Griswold's sketch was as follows : — "Passion 
in him comprehended many of the worst emotions which 
militate against human happiness. You could not contradict 
him but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of 
wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The aston- 
ishing natural advantages of this poor boy, his beauty, his 
readiness, the daring spirit that breathed around him like a 
fiery atmosphere — had raised his constitutional self-confi- 
dence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to ad- 
miration into prejudices against him. Irascible, envious — 
bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient angles were 
all varnished over with a cold, repellant cynicism, his pas- 
sions vented themselves in sneers. There appeared in him no 
moral susceptibility; and, what was more remarkable in a 
proud nature — little or nothing of the true point of honor. 
He had, to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vul- 
garly called ambition, but no wish for the esteem or love of 
his species ; only the hard wish to succeed — not shine, not 
serve — succeed, that he might have the right to despise 9 
world that galled his self-conceit." 



76 I;ite:ratur^ in th^ South 

and we met him often in the streets, invariably the 
same sad-mannered, winning, and refined gentle- 
man, such as we had always known him. It was 
by rumor only, up to the day of his death, that we 
knew of any other development of manner or char- 
acter. We heard from one who knew him well 
(what should be stated in all mention of his la- 
mentable irregularities) that with a single glass of 
wine his whole nature was reversed, the demon 
became uppermost, and though none of the usual 
signs of intoxication were visible, his will was pal- 
pably insane." He also published letters from Poe 
which he felt threw light upon his ''sane" character, 
proving the possession of qualities often denied him; 
as "humihty, willingness to persevere, belief in an- 
other's kindness, and capability of grateful and cor- 
dial friendship." Among these letters was a touch- 
ing note from Mrs. Clemm: *1 do not ask you to 
notice his death and to speak well of him," she 
wrote, "But say what an affectionate son he was to 
me, his poor, desolate mother." 

Poe had a very definite theory of poetical com- 
position. He considered a long poem "a. contradic- 
tion in terms." He held that beauty, rather than in- 
struction, pleasure rather than moral influence, 
should be the aim of poetry ; the beauty and pleasure 
being the more poetic when eluding definite analysis. 
He distinguishes romance from poetry: "romance 
presenting perceptible images definite, poetry with 
indefinite sensations, to which end music is an 
essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound 
is our most indefinite conception. Music, when com- 
bined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry ; music with- 



Literature in the South 77 

out the idea is simply music; the idea without the 
music is prose from its very definiteness.'* He held 
that all the fine arts, but, especially, music and 
poetry, had for their end the creation of beauty. 
The pleasures of Truth satisfied the intellect; those 
of Passion excited the heart; but those sentiments 
aroused by Beauty were most pure and absorbing, 
making man conscious of his immortal nature, and 
elevating him to the realm of the divine. Thus the 
power of natural beauty was to suggest to man an 
ideal of beauty beyond all manifestations of sense, 
which should be the source of spiritual emotion. 

"There comes Poe with his raven, like Barnaby 

Rudge, 
Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer 

fudge, 
Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters, 
In a way to make people of common-sense damn 

metres."* 

Lowell wrote these lines, proving thereby that 
more than one American poet was capable of pun- 
gent criticism. At any rate, Poe was master of lit- 
erary form, melody, tone color, verse effects to a 
marvellous degree. He knew the poetic value of 
alliteration, repetition, and assonance, and the fit- 
ness of certain metrical forms for the expression 
of poetic moods. 

A careful study of his poems in chronological 
order will reveal the development of style, from the 
early experiments in metrical effects — liowever fas- 

♦A Fable for Critics. 



78 Literature in the South 

clnating and original — riveting attention to fonn 
rather than thought, to the later poems of rare 
imagination and imagery and mystic beauty, whose 
form seems inseparable from their inner significance 
of regret, despair, or haunting terror. 

The varying estimates of Poe's genius may well 
bewilder the reader, seeking literary guidance. 
White* says *'the melody of his best poems is haunt- 
ing, but tended ever to degenerate into mere me- 
chanical jingle. His tone is spirituous, never spirit- 
ual." He further adds that alone of all our poets, 
Poe links us to Europe by the ^'musical despair" 
similar to that of Heine, De Musset, and some 
others. Brander Matthews** finds that his 
''scheme of poetry was highly artificial, that the 
themes of his poems were vague and insubstantial, 
and that his stanzas do not stimulate thought" ; finds 
in his poetry only ''the suggestion of departed but 
imperishable beauty, and the lingering grace and 
fascination of haunting melancholy." * * * His 
poems "echo no call to dut}'; they celebrate beauty 
only — beauty immaterial and evanescent; they are 
their own excuse for being." Mabief concedes his 
work "a first place in our literature, not by reason 
of its mass, its reality, its range, its spiritual or 
ethical significance, but by reason of its complete 
and beautiful individuality, the distinction of its 
form and workmanship, the purity of its art." 
Swinburnet writes : "Once as yet, and once only, 
has there sounded out of it all (America) one pure 

♦Philosophy of American Literature, p. 59. 

♦♦Introduction to American Literature. 

fAtlantic Monthly, Dec. 1899. 

tUnder the Microscope. 



Literature in the South 79 

note of original song worth singing, and echoed 
from the singing of no other man; a note of song 
neither wide nor deep, but utterly true, rich, clear, 
and native to the singer; the short, exquisite music, 
subtle and simple and sombre and sweet, of Edgar 
Poe." 

Are these poems, leaving out of consideration all 
of Poe's prose work, — are these the poems of an 
intellectual but unamiable, cynical, fitful and world- 
sick man, evidences merely of verbal mechanism 
and the celebration of the worship of beauty? Or 
do we find them songs 'Svorth singing" of a man 
of genius, unhappy from early years, wretched and 
poverty-stricken, pursued by relentless fate, of lov- 
ing heart and proud spirit, who thought and felt, 
and sang in the temple of beauty because he thought 
and felt "as it is given to but few to think and feel?'* 

One critic will dwell upon his mysticism. Lowell 
says, "Mr. Poe has no sympathy with mysticism. 
The mystic dwells in the mystery, is enveloped with 
it; it colors all his thoughts; it affects his optic 
nerve especially, and the commonest things get a 
rainbow edging from it. Mr. Poe, on the other 
hand, is a spectator, ah extra. He analyses, he dis- 
sects, he watches, 

'With an eye serene. 

The very pulse of the machine,' 

for such it practically is to him, with wheels and 
cogs and piston rods, all working to produce a cer- 
tain end.* 

♦Graham's Magazine, Feb., 1845. 



80 LlT^RATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH 

In Woodberry's "Life of Poe"t occurs this pass- 
age : "in the first lines of the Hterary Hfe of a young 
nation, the truth is better than a He, however gilded, 
and in the case of genius, that so easily gathers 
romantic power over the heart and wins its devo- 
tion, candor is a social virtue." If, without a theory 
to prove, the poems of Poe are considered in con- 
nection with the poet's life, a just basis of inter- 
pretation will be gained ; and, whatever the result as 
to the final estimate, the keen interest of research, 
with the development of independent judgment, will 
more than recompense the student for the time and 
labor required. For the final word is not yet spoken. 
The quality of his genius and the value of his genius 
are still discussed, even when the existence of that 
genius is conceded. "Call him, if you will," says 
F. W. H. Myers,$ "the least of the immortals : but 
let us trust that immortal he shall be; that the ever 
gathering wind which bears down to us the odors 
of the past shall carry always a trace of the bitter 
fragrance crushed out from this despairing soul." 

CHRONOLOGY. 

1809 — ^January 19 — Edgar Allen Poe, born at Bos- 
ton. 

181 1 — December 8 — Death of Mother at Richmond. 
Adoption of Edgar by Mr. John Allen, of 
Richmond. 

18 1 5 — ^June — Mr. Allen takes his family to Eng- 
land. 

1820 — August — Return to America. 

fLife of Poe, p, 348. 
^Library of the World's Best Literature. Poe. 



Literature in the South 8i 

1826 — February 14 — Poe enters University of Vir- 
ginia. 

1826 — December 15 — Poe returns home from Uni- 
versity. Mr. Allen places him in his count- 
ing-house, which Poe soon leaves, and goes 
to Boston. 

1827 — Publication of Tamerlane and Other Poems. 
Poe enlists in army of United States. 

1829 — ^January i — Appointed Sergeant-Major. 
April I — Discharged, by substitute. Pub- 
lication of Al Araaf. 

1830 — July I — Enters Military Academy, West 
Point. 

183 1 — February 8 — Dismissed from Academy. 

183 1 — Publication of Pon»^. Second Edition. Re- 
moval to Baltimore. Wins prize offered 
by Saturday Visitor by his tale, A MS. 
Found in a Bottle. Becomes regular con- 
tributor to Saturday Visitor. 

1835 — Becomes connected with Southern Literary 
Messenger. Removal to Richmond. Sept. 
22 — Marriage license to Virginia Clemm 
taken out. 

1836 — May 16 — Public marriage to Virginia 
Clemm. 

1838 — July — Publication of Narrative of Arthur 
Gordon Pym. Removal to Philadelphia. 

1839 — Publication of Conchologists' First Book. 

1840— Publication of Tales of the Grotesque and 
Arabesque. Contributes to Burton's Gen- 
tleman s Magazine. 

1841 — Becomes connected with Graham's Magazine. 

1844 — Removal to New York. Becomes connected 
with Evening Mirror, 



82 Literature in the South 

1S45 — ^January 29 — Publication of The Raven, 

1847 — ^January 30 — Death of wife. 

1848 — Publication of Eureka. 

1849— October 7— Death of Poe at Baltimore. 



LlT^RATURie IN THE SoUTH 83 



VI. 
HUGH SWINTON L^GARE. 

Statesman and man of letters, but especially great 
as a scholar in Civil Law stands Hugh Swinton 
Legare. He was not a creative author, yet he was 
an acknowledged leader of literary thought in 
Charleston at a time when Charleston was a literary 
centre. It is hardly too much to say that in his 
time he was the most truly typical representative 
of the aristocratic, exclusive, cultured Charleston- 
ians. 

Born in Charleston, in 1797, of Huguenot ances- 
try, tracing his maternal descent from the Scotch 
Covenanters, he was not without a certain pride of 
birth. He felt that it was good to have been born 
in Charleston, good to have flowing in his veins the 
blood of Huguenot and Scotch heroes of the faith. 
His father dying early, the boy was reared by the 
mother, who seems to have been a woman of un- 
usual intelligence and force of character, and who 
determined to give him every educational advantage 
that she could afford. 

During his childhood Legare was inoculated for 
the small-pox. This caused a severe form of the 
disease which seriously threatened his life, and so 
affected his lower limbs as to result in permanent 
deformation. Unable to share in the sports of boy- 



84 LlTljRATUR^ IN THK SoUTH 

hood or youth, he found his chief pleasure in books, 
in intellectual activity instead of physical exercise. 
He entered South Carolina College at the age of 
fourteen, graduating four years later with highest 
honors. According to the reports of his classmates 
and professors, his capacity and zeal for knowledge 
were truly remarkable. At an early period he 
showed a high appreciation of the classic authors, 
and gave evidence of the talents later to make his 
name so widely known. He adopted law as his 
profession, and near the close of the year 1822 was 
admitted to the bar, and began the practice of law 
in Charleston. He was well prepared for his work, 
for he had received the best advantages that his 
native State could afford, had travelled and studied 
abroad, and had studied law at the University of 
Edinburgh. 

Legare had served as a member of the Lower 
House of the South Carolina General Assembly 
from 1820 to 1822. He was again elected a mem- 
ber of that body in 1824, serving until 1830, when 
he became Attorney-General of his State. Already 
the era of good- will was over. No longer did men, 
even of the same section think together. The doc- 
trines of State Sovereignty and Nationalism were 
living issues, presenting problems the solution of 
which were regarded as pressing and immediate ne- 
cessity. Judge William Smith, leader of the old 
Crawford party and the opponent of Mr. Calhoun, 
in 1824, produced his remarkable Anti-Bank, Anti- 
Internal Improvement, and Anti-Tariff Resolutions. 
Legare allied himself to the Smith party. This 
party was for a while successful, but Judge Smith, 
having attained his immediate purpose, seems to 



Literature in the South 85 

have had little inclination to carry the matter fur- 
ther. When, later, Cooper and others would push 
the resolutions to their logical conclusions Lcgare's 
conservatism restrained him, and he strongly op- 
posed tlie nullification movement. 

Dr. Thomas Cooper, President of South Carolina 
College, wielded so remarkable an influence in his 
day and generation, that a few words with reference 
to him will not be amiss, even in this passing view 
of the situation. He was by birth an Englishman, 
but having spent part of his early life in France had 
been largely influenced by French thought, and con- 
verted to the doctrines of French republicanism. 
When he came to America, near the close of the 
eighteenth century, the fearless, even violent, utter- 
ance of his radical theories did not suffer him long 
to remain in obscurity. Thus he received the dis- 
tinction of being prosecuted under the Alien and 
Sedition laws. He went to South Carolina, and was 
a remarkable example of "the scholar in politics," 
writing bold articles on political and economical 
subjects. He was a close thinker and expressed him- 
self with force. A great number of the younger 
men of South Carolina received their political and 
economxic doctrines from Dr. Cooper. 

It is not a very easy matter for us to distinguish 
practically between the abstract tenets of the party 
led by Mr. Calhoun and those of the Union and 
State's Rights party of Air. Legare. Both declared 
loyalty to the Union; both declared the rights of 
the State. In his speech before the Union party, 
Legare stated the case as follows : — ''The difference 
between us and the advocates of this (nullification) 
doctrine is not as to the question how far a State 



86 Literature: in the South 

is bound to acquiesce in an unconstitutional act of 
Congress; or (which is the same thing) how far 
it has a right to interpose to arrest the progress of 
such legislation. We admit this right in the most 
unqualified manner; for if the law be unconstitu- 
tional it is no law at all. So far there is no dif- 
ference and can be no difference between us. The 
question is not as to the right, nor even as to the 
remedy, but as to what shall ensue upon the exercise 
of the right, or the application of the remedy. The 
advocates of nullification insist upon it, that the 
interference of the States in such a case would be 
a peaceful act — we say it would be upon their own 
showing an act of war — a revolutionary measure — 
a remedy derived from a source above all law, and 
an authority which bows to no arbiter but the 
sword — and this is as susceptible as any point 
within the whole compass of public law."* 

Reading this "explanation," and considering the 
extreme agitation and party division, one hardly 
wonders that Petigru wrote : *'I am devilishly puz- 
zled to know whether my friends are mad, or I be- 
side myself. * * * When poor Judge W 

used to fancy himself a tea-pot, people thought he 
was hypochondriac ; but there are in the present day 
very good heads filled with notions not less 
strange."t 

When Legare published some time later his esti- 
mate of Cicero, there were not wanting those who 
suggested a parallel between the conduct of the 

♦Speech before the Union and State's Rights party, Charles- 
ton, July 4, 1831. 

fMemoir. Grayson. 



Literature: in the South 87 

Roman Scholar and Orator during the political con- 
tests of his day, and the conduct of the Charleston 
Scholar and Orator in the days of Nullification. 
But Legare was essentially conservative, and it may 
be that he saw with sad clearness the future of 
South Carolina should the Nullifiers prevail, for in 
1833 he wrote to a friend that in the political events 
he saw ''the first blossoms of the tree of bitterness 
and death." 

In 1827 the "Southern Review" was founded. 
Legare gave himself to its support, sometimes writ- 
ing half the contents of a number. No other lit- 
erary undertaking in the South has commanded 
such talent as this Review, numbering among its 
contributors besides the scholarly Legare, Cooper, 
learned in many subjects, vigorous in thought; Mc- 
Duffie, impassioned, courageous, a keenly intelligent 
political economist; Petigru, witty and learned in 
the law; the elder Elliott, the learned Henry, Wal- 
lace, of rare analytical powers; Nott, and others of 
ability. How important was Legare's part in the 
support of the publication is seen in the fact that 
when after a few years, his increasing legal duties 
made it necessary for him to cease his contributions, 
the Review itself soon ceased to exist. 

While Attorney-General of South Carolina, it 
fell to Legare to argue an important case before the 
Supreme Court of the United States, on which occa- 
sion he made a profound impression upon his hear- 
ers. Chief Justice Story said: "His argumenta- 
tion was marked by the closest logic; at the same 
time he had a presence in speaking which I have 
fenever seen excelled." During this visit to Wash- 
ington he made the acquaintance of Mr. Livingstone, 



88 Literature in the South 

who was then Secretary of State. Mr. Living- 
stone was deeply impressed by Legare's unusual 
learning in civil law, and urged him to pursue its 
study for national purposes, believing that a greater 
portion of the philosophy and spirit of the civil law 
might be infused into our jurisprudence. With a 
view to the development of this idea, he offered 
Legare the appointment of American Charge 
d' Affaires at the Court of Brussels ; in which diplo- 
matic service he would be placed for several years 
in the centre of that department of legal science. 

Legare accepted the position. A more congenial 
one could not have been offered him. Placed in 
cultured society, within easy access to great libraries 
of ancient and modern works, within easy reach of 
Paris and Berlin, his sojourn at Brussels was not 
the least happy period of his life. Already familiar 
with the languages and literature of the ancient 
classics and of southern Europe, he now mastered 
German. The day on which he began reading Faust 
he recorded as an epoch in his nfe. But his most 
serious study while abroad was a course, under 
Savigny, of Ancient Jurisprudence and of Roman 
and Civil Law. His Diary is the frank story of 
those four years, giving the keen interest of the 
writer in the life about him, his zeal for study, his 
striving after excellence, his love for America — 
especially for Carolina, and occasionally the pro- 
found depression of spirits that sometimes possessed 
him. 

The political situation in South Carolina had de- 
pressed him extremely, and in November, 1835, he 
wrote to a friend with reference to the effects of 
Nullification: *'The age in which we live is, more 



LitivRature: in the South 89 

than all things else, the age of great empires; and 
woe to the people that deliberately throws away that 
advantage, under any circumstances whatever, but, 
most of all, when the first effect of its doing so will 
be to isolate it among the rest, with institutions 
which they all denounce, — with half its population 
at war with the other half, — with a government yet 
to form, and springing up (as it must) in the midst 
of ultra democratic disorders and the storm of a 
civil convulsion and excess. In short, whatever 
some of us may think of the expediency of having 
originally established a Southern Confederacy, the 
day is forever gone by." 

During the latter part of his stay in Belgium, he 
was urged to assist in reviving "The Southern Re- 
view," but declined, sadly convinced that the plan 
would not succeed, and that the pursuit of learning 
and letters in the South offered little encourage- 
ment. The outlook for Southern literature must 
indeed have been discouraging, for he had labored 
with zeal and diligence to build up the cause of let- 
ters in his section. In November, 1835, he wrote to 
a friend of his feelings on the subject : — "With re- 
gard to your enquiries about my poor self, do you 
think, dear Huger, that one whose illusions have 
been all, one after another, — 'star by star' — dis- 
pelled, can have the heart to think of himself? 
'Satisfy my ambition?' Why, I never had any am- 
bitions, properly so called : it was perhaps my bane 
to have none: the aspiring after excellence, which 
people mistook for what it is so dift'erent from, was 
for its oivn sake, and, I will add, with the hope of 
being useful to a country of w^hich I was proud, 
and felt honored to serve. My immense labor for 



90 LiTElRATURK IN THE) SouTH 

the 'Southern Review' (which thev saddled me with 
as if it had been an hereditary estate), do you think 
I went through so many nights (summer nights, 
too) of watching and toil because I hoped to be 
spoken of with some terms of compliment in our 
own newspapers, or even by foreigners? If so, 
why don't I write now, when pressed to do so ? No 
— no. I thought I could help to show that people 
did not know what our race was : — I felt that, in 
speaking its language, I should be thought eloquent, 
— and I have not been mistaken. But I wrote as 
an American, and, especially, as a Carolinian — and 
for some reasons you wot of, I fear 'Othello's oc- 
cupation's gone.' " 

He returned home near the end of 1836, to take 
active part in the life of his people. He was elected 
a member of the Congress that went in with the 
inauguration of Van Buren, being, however, thrown 
out at the next election. After this he resumed the 
practice of his profession. Upon the resignation of 
the original Harrison Cabinet, he was appointed 
Attorney-General of the United States, and, after 
the withdrawal of Webster from the cabinet, the 
cares of the State department were added to Le- 
gare's already heavy duties. 

The summer of 1842 was saddened bv the death 
of a favorite sister, and six months later his mother, 
to whom he was always devoted, breathed her last 
Legare's own career was nearly run. In June, 1843, 
he visited Boston to attend the Bunker Hill celebra- 
tion. On the day of his arrival he fell ill. Grow- 
ing rapidly worse, and suffering intense pain, he 
recognized his danger and calmly and clearly gave 
such directions as were possible for the disposal of 



Literature: in the South 91 

public affairs and his own private matters. His 
last spoken as his last written words were a message 
to a surviving sister. 

All of Legare's published writings are comprised 
in the volumes containing his Diary of Brussels, 
Journal of the Rhine, and Letters — none of these 
intended for publication — with his essays and re- 
views. His articles on ''Codification,'* "Kent's 
Commentaries," and "D'Aguesseau," of course, per- 
tain to the law. But in these the law is placed in 
so radiant a light that a layman may stand reverent 
before its beauty. The articles on "Classical Learn- 
ing," "The Democracy of Athens," "Roman Liter- 
ature," and the studies of Demosthenes and Cicero 
show the thoroughness of his classical learning, and 
his power to enter into the spirit of the past. From 
the standpoint of the general reader, he is at his 
best in these. Then there are studies of Sir Philip 
Sidney, the Charlemagne Legends, and of Byron — 
for Legare was a lover of poetry — and reviews of 
certain books long since forgotten. 

All that he wrote bears evidence of his thorough- 
ness, his scholarship, his refined manner of thought. 
His labors to encourage learning and to build up a 
literature in the South must be remembered. Al- 
though, as has been said, Legare was not a creative 
writer, he did for years influence greatly the literary 
taste in the South, his own attainments command- 
ing, as they still command, the highest respect. 

IU.USTRATIVE PASSAGES. 

"Liberty is law — liberty is truth — liberty is rea- 
son, and 'always with right reason dwell, and from 



92 LlTDRATUR^ IN THEJ SoUTH 

her hath no dividual being.* The greatest men, in 
such a country as this, ought to be considered (what 
they really are) as completely insignificant in com- 
parison of the smallest principle. It is of the very 
essence of republican government, that the laws, 
which all are free to choose, should be implicitly 
obeyed by all. And as law has been defined to be 
'reason without passion,' so those who administer 
and execute it should partake of the same unblem- 
ished nature. It is in this respect that Washington 
stands without a similar or a second. He was liv- 
ing law — the very personification of the purest, the 
sternest, the most dispassionate, the most sublime 
republicanism." 

"Any mob is bad — a mob of philosophers * * * 
as bad as any other." 

*'Few men have the firmness to be right alone." 
' — Cicero De Republica. 

"While just men doubt, while wise men deliberate, 
bold and reckless men decide and do. They lead be- 
cause they go on — they are believed because they 
afiirm — they intimidate because they boast and 
threaten — and they are obeyed because they dare to 
command." 

«— D'Aguesseau. 

"What did the eloquence of !/^schines want to 
make it perfect? That which distinguishes the elo- 
quence of Demosthenes, above all others, ancient or 
modern, — earnestness, conviction, the power to per- 
suade that belongs to a strong and deep persuasion 
felt by the speaker. * * * It is given to no man, 
be his genius or accomplishments what they may, 



Litejrature: in thk South 93 

to sway, with a real empire, great masses, with any 
other voice than that of faith, animated by hope, 
but, above all, inflamed with zeal in his cause, and 
with 'dearest charity' to impress his convictions on 
others. Do you expect to be eloquent? Say noth- 
ing you do not believe — the voice never lies — the 
slightest tone of nature will pierce and penetrate ten 
thousand bosoms as if with an electric spark, but 
the least falseness and coldness, and, still worse, af- 
fectation, there, is fatal. It is for tliis reason that 
the weak things of this world so often confound 
the wise in this kind." 

-—Demosthenes. 

"History is written in vain. If mankind have not 
been taught that demagogue and tyrant are syn- 
onymous; and that he who professes to be the friend 
of the people, while he persuades them to sacrifice 
their reasons to their passions — their duty to their 
caprices — their laws, their constitution, their glory, 
their integrity, to the mere lust of tyrannical mis- 
rule — is a liar, and the truth is not in him." 

— The Democracy of Athens. 

"Poetry is a part, and an essential part, of human 
nature ; and he who can look out upon the material 
world, as it lies before him in its grandeur and 
beauty, or read of the heroic doings of the mighty 
dead, without feeling his bosom warmed with that 
enthusiasm which is the soul of poetry, falls, so far, 
short of what a man ought to be." 

. — ^Jeremy Bentham and The Utilitarians. 



94 LiTKRATURK IN TH^ SoUTH ' 



CHRC :toi<ogy. 

1797 — ^^Tanuary 2 — Hugh Swinton Legard, born in 
Charleston, S. C. 

1 814 — Graduated from South Carolina College. 

1 81 8 — May — Sailed for Europe. 

181 8-1 820 — ^Travel and Study Abroad. 

1820 — Return to Charleston. Elected Member of 
South Carolina General Assembly for bi- 
ennial term. 

1 824-1 830 — Again Member of Assembly. 

1830 — Became Attorney-General of South Carolina. 

1832 — ^Appointed American Charge d' Affaires at 
Brussels. 

1836 — Return to America. Elected Member of Con- 
gress. 

1838 — Resumes practice of law in Charleston. 

1 841 — Appointed Attorney-General of the United 
States. 

1843 — May 9 — Secretary of State. 

1843 — June 20 — Death at Boston, Mass. 



Literature in the South 95 



VII. 

WII^IvIAM GII.MORE SIMMS. 

Simms in nearly every respect was in strong con- 
trast to Legare; yet both were South CaroHnians, 
both Charlestonians, and both strove for the vin- 
dication of Southern institutions and the building 
up of a Southern literature. Legare's life covered 
almost the first half of the century. The strongest 
political characteristic of his time was the growth 
of sectionalism. The Tariff, State's Rights, Nul- 
lification were living issues. To a Southerner of 
conservative principles and nature the struggle, agi- 
tation and division were fraught with bitterness and 
sorrow, and Legare had a clear-eyed vision of the 
end of the long agitation. Simms lived until after 
the close of the War, when the questions that called 
the war into being had been consigned to the 
archives of history. 

Simms was born in Charleston in April, 1806. He 
was only three years old when his mother died, 
two little brothers dying within a few months of 
the mother. The father, to whom Charleston was 
now and ever after, in his own words, **a place of 
tombs," left his only living child with his wife's 
mother, Mrs. Gates, and rode away to the unsettled 
i^tjpons of the Southwest. It is said that within the 



g6 LiTi^RATURs: IN mt South 

week of his wife's death, his hair had become as 
white as snow. 

Mrs. Gates had very limited means and could not 
educate her grandson as she would have desired. 
Private schools were expensive, and the free school 
to which she was obliged to send the boy was worse 
than poor. In later years he wrote that the schools 
he had attended were — with one exception — utterly 
worthless; the teachers, as a rule, being 'Vorthless 
in morals, and as ignorant as worthless." He speaks 
of one, an Irishman, who was the best, knowing 
little, but who, during one year, taught him "to 
spell, read tolerably, and write a pretty good hand." 
None of his teachers made arithmetic clear to him. 
He goes on to say that there was practically no 
supervision of teachers or commissioners. There is 
sad reason to believe that his condemnation of the 
common schools of that time is none too strong.* 
Later there were two or three years at private 
schools, but no great progress seems to have been 
made at these. He never read through an English 
grammar, and knew nothing of Latin. 

However, he soon applied the skill imparted to 
him by his Irish pedagogue. He began writing 
verses when he was but eight years old, inspired by 
our naval victories in the second war with England. 
As for reading, he read all that he could get, and, 

*An article in the "Southern Quarterly Review" for Octo- 
ber, 1849, on the Free School System in South Carolina, states 
that these schools "are intended for the children of the poor 
and for no other." Therefore only spelling, reading, writing, 
and a little arithmetic are to be taught. Grammar, Geogra- 
phy, and Government would be ill suited for the children of 
the poor. The reviewer also objected to the proposed estab- 
lishment of Normal Schools. 



Literature: in thie; South 97 

fortunately, the books a Southern boy in the old 
days could easiest get, were the good old English 
classics. He delighted, also, in the stories that his 
grandmother would tell of Revolutionary experi- 
ences, family traditions, Indian legends, and weird 
folk lore. These stirred his imagination, and 
formed a store from which he afterwards drew in 
the production of his romances. 

When he was about ten years old, there was a 
visit from his father, and his father, also, had 
stories of adventure to tell. These greatly impressed 
the boy, and indeed they were stories that might 
well have impressed any lad. For this father, 
though uncultured, was a man of keen observation 
and forcible speech, and told a story well. He had 
known varied experiences, and seen life in many 
phases. He had served with Jackson against Creeks 
and Seminoles, had lived the pioneer life, and taken 
his part in border warfare. 

Several years later, he visited his father in the 
Southwest, spending several months with him, rid- 
ing from one settlement to another, entertained by 
the backwoodsmen. Creeks, or Cherokees; some- 
times riding through primeval forests, through 
whose silence was, now and then, heard the howl 
of a wolf or cry of a panther. Later, when he wrote 
of pioneers, Indians, hunters, he wrote of a people 
whom he knew. His father wished him to remain 
in the new country, and, should he do so, promised 
him a seat in Congress in ten years. Simms was the 
man to succeed in a new country, but he never for- 
got that he was a Charlestonian, and his attachment 
to Charleston was so strong that he could not be 
induced to make his home elsewhere. 



98 Literature in the South 

At one time he had thought of studying medicine, 
but he had now given up the idea, and, returning 
to Charleston, began the study of law. He prac- 
ticed law only a few years, and never succeeded at 
it. Undeterred, however, by his slender prospects, 
he married Miss Anna Malcolm Giles, of Charleston, 
in 1826, and the next year a daughter was born. 

Meanwhile he was writing poetry, — patriotic odes 
and poems for various occasions. In 1827 he pub- 
lished his first volume of verses; they were fluent 
and rhythmic, but without poetic quality. During 
the same year he began, with his friend, Simmons, 
to publish a literary magazine, **The Tablet," an 
experiment not crowned with success. He con- 
tinued to write verses, and in 1829 published a 
second volume of verses, this containing ''The Lost 
Pleiad," a poemi of genuine imaginative quality and 
beautiful expression. 

"Ah! still the strain of wailing sweetness fills the 

saddening sky; 
The sister stars lamenting in their pain 
That one of the selected ones might die, — 
Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest! 
Alas! 'tis ever thus the destiny. 
Even Rapture's song hath evermore a tone 
Of wailing, as for bliss too quickly gone. 
The hope most precious is the soonest lost, 
The flower most sweet is first to feel the frost. 
Are not all short-lived things the loveliest? 
And like the pale star, shooting down the sky. 
Look they not ever brightest, as they fly 
From the lone sphere they blest?" 



tlTElRATUR^ IN THIS SoUTH 99 

Simms was a lover of poetry, and his hearths de- 
sire was to succeed in writing poetry; yet, after all, 
**The Lost Pleiad" is his only poetic work in which 
he rises appreciably above the commonplace. 

It was a time of political turmoil, and few men 
cared to read poetry. Simms allied himself to the 
Union and State's Rights Party, and flung himself 
ardently into the struggle, writing odes and edi- 
torials — he was now editor of the Charleston ''City 
Gazette," and found, after the election, that his 
advocacy of a losing side had caused him to lose 
subscribers as well as friends. Misfortunes fol- 
lowed thick and fast. His home was burned. Soon 
after his grandmother, the only mother he could 
remember, died, and then ere long his father. Early 
in 1832 he laid his young wife to rest. 

Sorrow and disappointment had certainly been 
the portion of Simms, but it was not in him long to 
despair. The defeated and unpopular Unionists had 
little prospect of future success. Some were leav- 
ing the State. Legare had accepted the post of 
Charge d'Affaires at Brussels. Simms determined 
upon a visit to the North, for the literary life at- 
tracted him, and he had found little in the South 
to encourage him in that life. A sojourn at the 
North, — the first of many — the acquaintance, ripen- 
ing in many cases into friendship, of literary men, 
the introduction to publishers and editors, inspiring 
contact with men of congenial thought — all these 
influences stimulated him to greater literary activity. 

"Atalantis," a dramatic poem of sea nymphs and 
fairies and good and bad sprites, was prepared for 
the press, during Simms' summer at the North. It 
was well received and widely read, yet the easy 



loo Lite:ratur^ in thk South 

versification, and an occasional imaginative note, 
have not saved it from oblivion. Scarcely was 
*'Atalantis" launched when ''Martin Faber," Simms' 
first novel, was published. It was the elaboration 
of a story he had published in the "Southern Lit- 
erary Gazette," founded partly on fact, "The Con- 
fessions of a Murderer." It was a tale of horror 
and was severely criticised, though Poe praised it. 
Twenty years later, when Simms revised his works, 
he omitted "Martin Faber" from the edition. In 
1834 Simms was again in New York reading the 
proofs of "Guy Rivers." This book had an im- 
mense popularity. In spite of its many faults, it 
had power, movement, and dramatic interest, with 
no lack of plot. It was the first of the "Border 
Romances," all of which were full of adventure, 
even sensation, with many strong pictures of char- 
acter and life, yet marred by revolting details, and 
certain realistic horrors, offensive to good taste, and 
not essential to the strength of the narrative. 

With the publication of "Guy Rivers," Simms 
had fairly entered upon his career as a writer of 
romance, and one book followed another in rapid 
succession. The historical novels were as popular 
as the "Border Romances," and more worthy of 
fame. In these Simms was at his best, for he wrote 
of the Indians whom he knew too well to idealize; 
of Tories and Patriots of whom legends had de- 
lighted him from infancy; of the bold frontiers- 
men: and the speculators and adventures of a new 
country. He deemed it necessary in all his tales to 
introduce certain villains, gamblers, and other des- 
perate characters. In even the best of his books 
there is a lack of self-restraint. There is sometimes 



Lite;rature in the South ioi 

a ghastly realism. No detail of horror is left to 
the imagination, but full light is thrown upon all. 
Yet these offenses did not affect the popularity of his 
books in their day. 

Simms sought his themes in the history and tra- 
ditions of his own locality. He knew — and this 
knowledge is not given to all — that greatness might 
lie in the familiar, and he needed not the perspective 
of time or place to perceive this greatness. This, 
at the time he wrote, was unusual, and some courage 
was required for a writer of romance to turn from 
the high-born lords and ladies, so popular then in 
fiction, and write just of the folk he knew or whom 
he had met in his wanderings. And though he was 
no scholar, and careless writing mars his books, 
he made faithful studies of all his historical matter, 
visiting the scenes of his stories, and working up 
details with painstaking conscientiousness. 

In the year 1835 Simms married Miss Chevilette 
Roach, and after his marriage made his home at the 
Plantation Woodlands, near Charleston. Here he 
dispensed a generous hospitality in the easy, old- 
fashioned way. Many were the visitors who came 
to pay their respects to the literary man. Among 
Northern friends entertained there was Bryant, be- 
tween whom and Simms a strong friendship existed, 
which was to endure the test of political strain and 
civil war, the two men speaking their minds plainly 
all the time and liking each other none the less for 
their frankness. 

During part of the year the family home was at 
Charleston, where Simms enjoyed the company of 
many congenial friends, and, in time, gathered 
around him gifted men, bound to him and to each 



102 Liti:rature: in the: South 

other by more than the ordinary ties of friendship. 
Among the elder men were Petigru, Grayson, King, 
and Yeadon, Dr. Dickson, the Rev. James Miles, 
and the Gilmans. Later younger men of talent drew 
near to him and looked to him as their leader. These 
called him **Father Abbot," and themselves his 
disciples, taking the affectionate title from a little 
volume Simms published in 1849. They had many 
informal gatherings, sometimes playing whist, often- 
er listening to Simms' discourse in Johnsonian fash- 
ion, quote poetry or pour forth one anecdote after 
another. He was something of a dictator, and de- 
clared himself with emphasis on literary matters, or 
politics, as the case might be. Picture one of these 
gatherings — with Dr. Bruns, noting all, appreciating 
all; Timrod, sensitive and shrinking, yet taking 
such great delight in this social intercourse that these 
hours ever remained to him among the sweetest in 
life; Paul Hayne, gentle and noble, and others 
prominent in Charleston life and society. 

The closer they drew to Simms, the more they 
loved him, the vigorous, whole-souled man incapable 
of any littleness. They forgot his eccentricities, 
and his pompous fashion of discourse, listening with 
eagerness to his words. Of ''Father Abbot's" dis- 
ciples, Timrod alone seems to have resisted his in- 
tellectual influence, and refused to accept all of 
Simms' decisions. Yet in "The Cotton Boll" he 
pays this tribute : — 

*'His be the meed whose pencil's trace 
Hath touched our very swamps with grace, 
And round whose tuneful way 
All Southern laurels bloom ; 



LlTKRATUim IN THE SoUTH IO3 

The Poet of 'The Woodlands' unto whom 
Alike are known 

The flute's low breathing and the trumpet's tone 
And the soft west wind's sighs." 

Meanwhile, what was there in literature that 
Simms did not attempt? Romances of his own land, 
romances of Goths and Spaniards, bold tales of ex- 
plorers, dramas, poems, critical reviews, editorship 
of periodicals. He edited Shakespeare, wrote politi- 
cal articles and pamphlets, and delivered orations. 
Then he wrote a school history of South Carolina, 
a Geography of South Carolina, Biographies of John 
Smith, Marion, Greene, the Chevalier Bayard, all 
written with a dash and spirit that made them wide- 
ly read. 

The prominent part that Simms had taken in the 
Nullification discussions will be remembered. But 
in the later, or rather continued, agitations, even 
more serious in their result, we find his point of 
view changed. He was no longer the conservative 
Unionist, but an ardent secessionist. With Tucker 
and Hammond, during the whole decade preceding 
secession, he wrote and spoke, urging separation 
from the North. 

Professor Trent, in his biography of Simms, thus 
accounts for the change of view: — ''But how had 
the Union editor of 1832 become the disunion editor 
of 1849? 'I'he answer can be given in one word, 
slavery. Simms, like nearly all the rest of his party, 
had held in 1832 that secession was an ultimate 
right belonging to every State, but one to be used 
in dire emergencies only. He had not thought the 
"Tariff of Abominations" a sufficient cause for se- 



104 LlT^RATUR^ IN THIS SouTH 

cession, or even for nullification ; but now he thought 
that slavery was doomed in the Union, and that it 
must be preserved as a peculiar institution of the 
South, therefore the obvious inference was that a 
dire emergency had come, and that the Southern 
States must secede."* The chapter from which I 
have quoted this passage gives a rather extended 
discussion of the political situation and the influ- 
ence of slavery on Southern letters as well as South- 
ern life. The author holds that a man's attitude 
towards slavery had become the test by which all 
must be judged. 

It would be a pleasant thing could one write the 
history of American literature without reference to 
slavery. But, indeed, sectionalism, with sectional 
bitterness and misunderstanding can not be ignored. 
Mrs. S.towe had written ''Uncle Tom's Cabin," the 
review of which, by a Southern woman, in the 
"Southern Quarterly Review" declared "Christian 
slavery in its full development, free from the fret- 
ting annoyance and galling bitterness of abolition 
interference, to be for the negro the brightest sun- 
beam which Omniscience has destined for his ex- 
istence.'* Few Northern writers exercised a large 
charity at this time, and Simms delivered himself 
severely with reference to Lowell's "Fable for 
Critics." He objected to Lowell's treatment of 
Cooper, whose writings, with all their faults, Simms 
would not give "for all the pretentious literature of 
New England." He further objects to the praise 
of Emerson — "a man who is really half-witted and 
whose chief excellence consists in mystifying the 

♦William Gilmore Simms, p. 167. 



Literature in the South 105 

simple and disguising commonplaces in allegory." 
"One Mr. Alcott," is passed lightly by with the sup- 
position that he has probably been ''pilfering from 
Plato all his life." There are satirical comments — 
not all unjust — of Willis, Brownson, and Holmes. 
Of Theodore Parker his Avords are scathing. He 
concludes with a reference to the reflections upon 
slavery, with a counsel to the publisher, "to be wary 
in perilling his interests in lending himself to the 
purposes of fanaticism and hate."* 

Matters finally reached a crisis, and this agita- 
tion could not be calmed by legislative compromise, 
or the declaration that **the Union must and should 
be preserved." The Southern States seceded, four 
years of warfare followed, and when peace came, 
it w^as a peace of desolation and poverty and humili- 
ation. 

In the spring of 1862 the home at Woodlands 
was burned. Simms bore this loss with philosophy. 
Greater troubles had already wrung his heart. In 
the fall of 1858, two promising sons had died on the 
same day of yellow fever. Three years later an- 
other son and a little daughter died. No wonder he 
cried that he was pursued by a hungry fate. More- 
over, he was possessed by thoughts of the impend- 
ing crisis. When, in the fall of 1863, his wife died, 
his distress was accompanied by illness and prostra- 
tion. But children were left him, and for their 
sake he must work. So he went on writing — or 
trying to write, for sometimes he would begin a 
poem only to lay it aside, quite overcome by feel- 

♦S. Q. R., Oct., 1849. 



Io6 LlTEjRATUR^ IN THD SoUTH 

ing. He seemed to feel that his Hfe was passing aod 
that he was accompHshing nothing. 

During the year 1863, he made two visits to Co- 
lumbia, one with his son Gilmore, who had been at 
home on furlough, and one to attend the funeral of 
his old friend, Jamison. Later he moved his family 
to Columbia, believing that place less likely to be 
attacked than Charleston, and he undertook the 
printing of the Columbia Phoenix. An incident of 
Sherman's march was the burning of the remaining 
building at Woodlands, the second burning result- 
ing in the loss of all the furniture and books that 
had not been sent away. Yet Simms could bid none 
speak to him of his losses when the State was lost. 
This was typical of the man. 

In the fall of 1865, he went North to re-estab- 
lish his relations with his publishers. The visit was 
not a pecuniary success, yet it cheered him, for he 
found that his old friends were still his friends. 
Strangers persisted in taking him for the "Pirate 
Semmes," a mistake which Simms enjoyed. It was 
a time in our history of which gracious memories 
are none too many, and it is pleasant to note that 
after his return home his Northern friends aided 
him generously, sending their gifts in so sweet and 
delicate a fashion that the most sensitive pride could 
not be wounded. Often Simms did not even know 
the names of those who helped him. 

It was a time of such poverty as cannot well be 
described, and is well-nigh too sad to dwell upon. 
Many of the better classes were living from day to 
day by the sale of furniture or silver. Yet Simms. 
finding bread for his children "out of his own 
brain," as he said, managed to get help for those still 



Literature in the South 107 

poorer than himself, was happy in the distribution 
of three hundred dollars that had been sent him for 
the Charleston poor, and spent days in getting one 
hundred and fifteen dollars, in small sums, for 
Timrod's relief. No wonder that many passages in 
his letters refer to high prices, heavy taxes, negroes 
on the plantations going to their work **like ele- 
phants with the gout." 

He lived for a while in Charleston with a married 
daughter, but in 1868 re-built Woodlands, though 
by no means on the old scale, and again made his 
home there working harder than ever. Writing 
now, as he said, no longer for love of it, or for 
fame, but just to get a living for his children, he 
made contracts for three stories, to appear serially 
in one year, two running at the same time. He fell 
ill in consequence, and the next year found him 
again in Charleston, where he could be cared for. 

Even now he was not idle, but continued writing, 
even when he was almost too ill to sit up, his stories 
or poems for which he was paid little — sometimes 
nothing, even when pay had been promised. The 
old days of "Guy Rivers," and *'The Yemassee,'* 
and *'The Partisan" were gone. The times were 
sad. He missed his friends, for the old circle was 
broken. Bruns had moved to New Orleans, and 
Hayne to Copse Hill, near Augusta. Jamison and 
Timrod had passed beyond earthly sight and touch. 
And Simms had loved his friends with all the might 
of his genial nature. Early in May he delivered 
the opening address at a Floral Fair in Charleston. 
His subject was *'The Sense of the Beautiful," and 
it was a tribute to the ideally good and beautiful, to 
which in his heart he had always been true. This 



io8 LiT^RATuR^ IN th:^ South 

was his last public utterance. A little more than 
a month later, on the eleventh day of June, the long 
day's work being done, he went, very calmly and 
peacefully, to his rest. 

When Hayne heard of his death, he wrote with 
great feeling to his friend, Dr. Porcher: — *'Simms 
himself, whom I had got into the habit of regarding 
as immortal, has finished his course and said his 
final farewells! Gallant old man! Whatever his 
faults, I, for one, loved him with all my heart! 
* * * He had fought a good fight and kept the 
faith, at least the faith he had plighted to his own 
genius and will. * * * Simms' genius never 
had fair play ! Circumstances hampered him 1 Thus 
the man was greater than his works" 

■ Professor Trent in his biography of Simms* — a 
work which the student of Southern literature can 
ill afford to neglect — while recognizing the influence 
of heredity, has this to say of Simms' environment : 
— "Nor should we forget * * * the effects upon 
him of the turmoil and struggle of his early years, 
of the humiliating treatment he underwent at the 
hands of a cold and unsympathetic aristocracy, and 
finally of the general tone of good-natured vul- 
garity and conceited ignorance so characteristic of 
America in the earlier years of this century. All 
these influences affected his character as much as 
they did his literary work. They made him dog- 
matic, opinionated, eccentric, capable at one time of 
doing great things and at another of doing some- 
thing unexpectedly foolish. * * * Perhaps there 
has never been a man whose development was so 

*P. 325. 



Literature in the South 109 

sadly hampered by his environment; and that he 
succeeded as far as he did in escaping from the ef- 
fects of his environment should move our admira- 
tion and respect." 

A full list of Simms' works, not including the 
many contributions to magazines and papers, would 
number more than a hundred titles. Unfortunately 
he wrote too much to write carefully, and much 
must be forgotten. There is a deep pathos in the 
epitaph that he composed for himself: — ''Here lies 
one, who, after a reasonably long life, distinguished 
chiefly by unceasing labors, left all his better works 
undone." 

CHRONOLOGY. 

William Gilmore Simms. 

1806 — April 17 — Born at Charleston. 

1808 — January 29 — Death of Mother. 

1825 — Visit to the Southwest. 

1826 — Married to Miss Anna Malcolm Giles, of 
Charleston. 

1827 — January — Publication of "Lyrical and other 
Poems." 

1827 — April 17 — Admitted to the Bar. 

1828 — ^June — Assumed editorship of ''The Tablet." 

1830 — ^January — Assumed editorship of "City Ga- 
zette." 

1832 — February — Death of wife. 

1832 — Summer and fall — First visit North. "Ata- 
lantis" published. Literary career fairly 
begun. 

1834— July— "Guy Rivers" published. 



no Literature in the South 

1835 — May — "The Yemassee" published. August 
— "The Partisan" published. November 
18 — Marriage to Miss Chevilette Roach, 
of Burnwell. 

1836 — "Mellichampe" published. 

1838— "Pelaya," "Carl Werner," "Richard Hurdis" 
published. 

1839 — "The Damsel of Darien" published. 

1840 — "Border Beagles," "History of South Caro- 
lina." 

1841— "The Kinsmen," "Confession." 

1 842 — "Beauchampe." 

1843 — "Geography of South Carolina" published. 
"Donna Florida." 

1844— "The Prima Donna." 

1845 — Collection of Sonnets," "Life of Marion," 
"Castle Dismal," "Helen Halsey," "Count 
Julien." 

1846 — "Life of Captain John Smith," "Wigwam 
and Cabin," "Areytos," or Songs of the 
South." 

1847— "Life of Bayard." 

1848— "Charleston and Her Satirists," "Lays of the 
Palmetto," "Atalantis, a Story of the Sea." 

1849 — "Life of Nathaniel Greene," "The Cacique of 
Accabee," "Sabbath Lyrics," "Father Ab- 
bot." 

1850— "The Lily and the Totem," "Flirtation at 
the Moultrie House." 

1851 — "Katharine Walton," "Norman Maurice," 
Drama. 

1852— "As Good as a Comedy," "The Sword and 
Distaff," "Michael Bonhaur." 

1853 — Poems, 2 vols. ; "Marie de Berniere," "South 



Literature in the South hi 

Carolina in the Revolutionary War/' 
"Egeria." 

[854— "Vasconselos," ''Southward Ho!" 

[855— 'The Forayers." 

1856— "Charlemont," "Eutaw." 

1859 — "The Cassique of Kiawah." 

1862 — April — Home burned. 

1863 — September 10 — Death of wife, "Benedict 
Arnold," "Paddy McGann." 

1865 — February — Woodlands devastated and build- 
ings burned. "Sack and Destruction of 
Columbia." 

1867 — "Joscelyn," "Memoir of Laurens." 

1869— "The Cub and the Panther," "Voltmeir, or 
the Mountain Men." 

1870 — June II — Death, at Charleston. 

[There is no attempt in this chronology to give a 
complete list of Simms' publications, and no men- 
tion is made of his contributions to periodicals, his 
orations, and political pamphlets. He was editorial- 
ly connected with several periodicals, notably the 
"Southern Quarterly Review."] 



112 LlT^RATUR^ IN tUt SoUTH 



VIII. 

WAR POE^TRY O^ THE) SOUTH. 

Times of war have ever been times of song, for 
then men's souls are stirred, and through the din 
of battle the minstrel's strains sound. And it may 
be that when the din of battle dies away, and even 
the questions that awoke the strife no longer con- 
cern any, the song still echoes. They do not often 
belong to the class of highest poetry — these martial 
lyrics — but, somehow, heart strings respond to 
them. They have stirred men to action more power- 
fully than argument alone has ever done, and they 
hold their place in memory when better poetry may 
be forgotten. 

It was during the bombardment of Ft. McHenry, 
in Baltimore harbor, 1814, that our first national 
song was written by Francis Scott Key. Key was 
born in Frederick County, Maryland, August 9, 
1780, was educated at St. John's College, Annapolis, 
studied law, and practiced his profession in Wash- 
ington City. Going on board a British vessel to 
secure the release of a friend who had been taken 
prisoner, he was detained on the ship until after the 
bombardment. The story is familiar of his watch- 
ing during the anxious hours, then writing the vvords 
of the poem on an old envelope. 



Literature in the South 113 

"O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand 
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation! 
Blest with vict'ry and peace may the heav'n rescued 

land 
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us 

a nation ! 
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 
And this be our motto — "In God is our trust. 
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." 

Key wrote other poems, a collection being pub- 
lished in 1857, with an introduction by his brother- 
in-law, Chief Justice Taney, but it is by "The Star 
Spangled Banner" that his name will be remembered. 

"The Bivouac of the Dead," written by Theodore 
O'Hara during the Mexican War, has its place in 
literature. It was written in memory of the Ken- 
tucky soldiers who fought their last fight at Buena 
Vista. It would not be easy to find better lines of 
their kind than these: 

"The muffled drums sad roll has beat 
The soldiers' last tattoo; 
No more on life's parade shall meet 
That brave and fallen few. 
On Fame's eternal camping-ground 
Their silent tents are spread, 
And Glory guards, with solemn round, 
The bivouac of the dead." 

O'Hara was a native of Kentucky. He studied 
law, but arms attracted him more strongly. Vol- 
unteering for the Mexican War, he rose to the rank 



114 Literature in the South 

of Major. When the war ended he took part witK 
Lopez in the Cuban expedition, and with Walker in 
Nicaragua, later still, joining the cavalry service, 
U. S. A. There was a little time of quiet between 
his resignation from the army and the opening of 
the war between the States. He was in active ser- 
vice through the whole of that war with the rank 
of Colonel, and lived until two years after its close. 
He died at Columbus, Georgia, but Kentucky hon- 
ored his memory and bore him home that he might 
rest by the side of those whose memory he had 
sung. 

The war between the States called forth a burst 
of song. James Ryder Randall, of Baltimore, in 
1861, wrote the well-known "Maryland, my Mary- 
land," the Marseillase, as it is called, of the Con- 
federacy, whose ringing words became at once pop* 
ular. 

Pike wrote his rallyinig song "Dixie" : — 

"Southrons, hear your country call you I 
Up ! lest worse than death befall you ! 
To arms ! to arms ! to arms ! in Dixie I 
Lo ! the beacon fires are lighted, 
Let all hearts be now united! 
To arms! to arms! to arms! in Dixie! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! 
Hurrah ! hurrah ! 

For Dixie's land we'll take our stand, 
To live or die for Dixie ! 
To arms ! to arms ! 
And conquer peace for Dixie! 
To arms ! to arms ! 
And conquer peace for Dixie !" 



Literature in the South 115 

The Confederacy was organized, and Timrod 
wrote "Ethnogenesis," by far the greatest poem, if 
judged by loftiness of thought, noble poetic con- 
ception, and sustained majesty, that belongs to this 
period of Southern literature. Joy in the birth of 
the new nation is the theme, and with present joy 
glad prophecy of the future. But the future of the 
South was not as Timrod's vision saw it then, and 
the poet sang many phases of the struggle. His 
poem, "Carolina" won ardent praise from Hayne, 
who declared his conviction that its fame would out- 
live the political vitality of the State, whose his- 
torical fame it celebrated, and so he wrote of it : — 
"I read them (these verses) first, and was thrilled 
by their power and pathos, upon a stormy March 
evening in Ft. Sumter. Walking upon the battle- 
ments, under the red lights of a tempestuous sunset, 
the wind steadily and loudly blowing from off the 
bar across the tossing and moaning waste of waters, 
driven inland with scores of gulls and white sea 
birds flying and shrieking around me, — those wild 
voices of nature, mingling strangely with the rhyth- 
mic roll and beat of the poet's impassioned music. 
The very spirit or dark genius of the troubled scene 
appeared to take up and repeat such verses as ; 

"1 hear a murmur as of waves 

That grope their way through sunless caves, 

Like bodies struggling in their graves, 

Carolina. 

And now it deepens, slow and grand— » 
It swells, as rolling to the land. 
An ocean broke upon the strand, 

Carolina. 



Il6 LlTlSRATUIce IN TH^ SoUTH 

Shout! let it reach the startled Huns, 
And roar with all thy festal guns! 
It is the answer of thy sons, 

Carolina !*• 

So thrilling a sound have these lines and "A Call 
to Arms," that the quieter beauty of "Charleston" 
has been less heeded than might have been; for 
Timrod sings in softer tones of the city, and of how 

"Calm as that second summer that precedes 
The first fall of the snow. 
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds, 
The city hides the foe." 

"Carmen Triumphale" is a song of triumph, but 
hushed and reverent, for one 

"Whose brow and breast were calm 
While yet the battle lay with God," 

must think of the patriots whose lives had been the 
price of victory, and therefore "gravely wear his 
mournful palm." 

Despite the fierce energy in many of Timrod's 
lyrics and his belief that war must be waged right- 
eously in a righteous cause, his gentle and sensitive 
nature longed for peace, and the closing lines of his 
"Christmas" are a beautiful invocation of peace. 

Peace came, but the peace of defeat and loss, and 
all that the poet, whose love for his land and people 
never faltered, could do was to sing one more strain 
in loving memory of the fallen. His latest poem 



LlTERATUR]^ IN THE SoUTH IIJ 

was an ode to the memory of the Confederate dead, 
and here we find the hnes of touching beauty : — 

"In seeds of laurel in the earth 
The blossom of your fame is blown. 
And somewhere, waiting for its birth, 
The shaft is in the stone." 

At his home near Columbus, Georgia, Dr. Tick- 
nor found some time in his busy life as a physician 
to write verses. A volume of his poems has been 
edited by Paul Hayne, who, ever ready with gen- 
erous praise for his brother poets, deemed Ticknor 
one of the truest and sweetest lyric poets our coun- 
try has produced. We know him best, perhaps, by 
''Little Giffen of Tennessee," written in memory of 
the brave country lad who was wounded ("eight- 
eenth battle and he sixteen!") given up to die, but 
taken from the hospital and nursed back to life. 
The poem tells of the hard struggle with death, the 
long weeks of splints and crutches, and, all the 
while, 

**A glint of the steel-blue eye 
Told of a spirit that wouldn't die. 
And didn't, Nay, more! in death's despite 
The crippled skeleton learned to write, 
'Dear Mother,' at first, of course, and then, 
'Dear Captain,' inquiring about the men. 
Captain's answer: *0f eighty and five, 
Giffen and I are left alive.' " 

But one day news cames that Johnston was pressed 
at the front, and little Giffen, his brave blue eyes 



ii8 Literature in the South 

dimmed for the first time by a tear, was "up and 
away." He promised to write if spared. *'There 
was news of the fight, but none of Giffen. He did 
not write.'' 

Dr. Ticknor tells his story and pays his tribute :— 

"I sometimes fancy that were I king 
Of the princely Knights of the Golden Ring, 
With the song of the minstrel in mine ear, 
And the tender legend that trembles here, 
I'd give the best on his bended knee, 
The whitest soul of my chivalry, 
For little Giffen' of Tennessee." 

"If there is a finer lyric than this in the whole 
realm of poetry," says Maurice Thompson, "I should 
be glad to read it." 

''The Virginians of the Valley" is a poem of a 
different type commemorating a victory won by the 
soldiers of Virginia, many of whom were descended 
from the famous "Knights of the Golden Horse- 
shoe" :— 

"The knightliest of the knightly race 
That, since the days of old. 
Have kept the lamp of chivalry 
Alight in hearts of gold. 
******** 

We thought they slept ! — the sons who kept 
The names of noble sires. 
And slumbered while the darkness crept 
Around their vigil fires; 
"But aye the 'Golden Horseshoe' knights 



Literature in the South 119 

Their Old Dominion keep, 

Whose foes have found enchanted ground, 

But not a man asleep." 

Perhaps even finer than this last is "Loyal," in- 
spired by the heroic death of General Pat Cleburne. 
'Tage Brook" is full of an exquisite pathos — the 
pathos of many a desolate Southern home when the 
clash of arms was hushed, and valor had been all in 
vain. But this belongs to a later day and was not 
the product of the war spirit. 

John R. Thompson, for many years editor of the 
''Southern Literature Messenger," and afterwards 
of "The Southern Home and Fireside," wrote a 
number of war poems.* One of these, "Music in 
in Camp,"t is of great sweetness, bringing to the 

*John Reuben Thompson was born at Richmond, Va., Oct. 
23, 1823. He was a graduate of the University of Virginia, 
studied law, and practiced his profession in Richmond. He 
assumed the editorship of "The Southern Literary Messenger" 
in 1847. In 1859 he moved to Augusta, Georgia, and became 
editor of "The Southern Field and Fireside." He went abroad 
in 1863, returned after the war, and became literary editor 
of the New York "Evening Post." His health had been fail- 
ing for years, and in 1873 he died in New York. As editor he 
was quick to discern and encourage merit, and to maintain a 
high standard for Southern letters. Yet his services as editor 
and critic were not those appealing most forcibly to Airs. 
Preston when she wrote : 

"Provencal-like, he wandered long, 
And sang at many a stranger's board, 
Yet 'twas Virginia's name that poured 
The tenderest pathos through his song. 
We owe the Poet praise and tears. 
Whose ringing ballad sends the brave. 
Bold Stuart riding down the years — 
What have we given him? Just a grave.* 

tCompare with Bayard Taylor's "Song in the Camp." 



120 LlTDRATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH 

mind gentle thoughts of "some truce of God that 
breaks the fight." The opposing armies were en- 
camped on the banks of the Rappahannock. The 
Federal band played "Yankee Doodle," the South- 
ern soldier boys crying defiance all the while; and 
"Dixie" played by the Southern band, aroused like 
cries of defiance from the other side : — 

"And yet once more the bugles sang 
Above the stormy riot ; 
No shout upon the evening rang — • 
There reighed a holy quiet. 

3|C 5|5 J|5 J^ ?)C 3|C ^C 

The sad, slow stream its noiseless flood 
Poured o'er the glistening pebbles; 
All silent now the Yankees stood. 
And silent stood the Rebels. 

No unresponsive soul had heard 

That plaintive note's appealing. 

So deeply 'Home, Sweet Home' had stirred 

The hidden founts of feeling. 

******* 

And fair the form of music shines, 
That bright, celestial creature, 
Who still 'mid war's embattled lines, 
Gave this one touch of nature." 

William Gordon McCabe wrote his ballads of 
bravery in battle, with sometimes a sentimental 
strain as in the verses, "Dreaming in the Trenches." 
Of the many camp songs by different writers, some 
were of passing popularity, others still are sung at 
gatherings of the veterans. "Stonewall Jackson*! 



Literature in the South 121 

Way," was one of the most popular of these, for 
the soldiers liked the picture of their hero : — 

"We see him now — the old slouched hat 
Cocked o'er his eye askew — 
The shrewd dry smile — the speech so pat. 
So calm, so blunt, so true. 
The 'Blue Light Elder' knows 'em well. 
Says he, 'That's Banks ; he's fond of shell. 
Lord save his soul ! we'll give him — ' well, 
That's Stonewall Jackson's way. 

Silence! Ground arms! Kneel all! Caps off! 
Old *BIue Light's' going to pray. 
Strangle the fool that dares to scoff I 
Attention ! it's his way ! 
Appealing from his native sod 
In forma pauperis to God, 
*Lay bare thine arm ! Stretch forth thy rod ! 
Amen!' That's Stonewall's way.'* 

Quite different in tone from these camp songs 
were the lines written on a Confederate bill when 
the war was over, telling with a simple pathos the 
story of the "Storm-cradled Nation." 

"Too poor to possess the precious ores, 

And too much of a stranger to borrow, 

We issued to-day our promise to pay 

And hoped to redeem on the morrow. 

The days rolled by and the weeks became years. 

But our coffers were empty still ; 

Coin was so rare that the treasury quaked 

If a dollar should drop in the till. 



122 LiTKRATURK IN TUt SoUTH 

But our boys thought little of price or pay, 
Or of bills that were over due; 
We knew if it brought us our bread to-day 
'Twas the best our poor country could do. 
Keep it, it tells all our history over, 
From the birth of the dream to the last ; 
Modest, and born of the angel Hope, 
Like our hope of success it has passed."* 

Of all our war poetry the best known and best 
loved is that of Abram J. Ryan, "Father Ryan," the 
poet priest, who, with all the ardor of his warm 
Celtic nature loved the South and gave her of his 
best. A critical estimate of Ryan's poetry can not 
place it in the same rank with Ticknor's, nor with 
Timrod's ; yet it is familiar to many to whom Tick- 
nor, and even Timrod, are but names. It is seldom 
we find a writer his own best critic, but in the preface 
to his poems Father Ryanf speaks thus modestly 
and justly of his verses : — "These verses (which 
some friends call by the higher title of poems — to 
which appellation the author objects) were written 
at random — off and on, here, there, anywhere — just 
when the mood came, with little of study and less 
of art, and always in a hurry. Hence they are in- 

*Printed in the "Montgomery Advertiser" anonymously. 

fAbram Joseph Ryan was born at Norfolk, Va., Aug. 15, 
T839, removing with his parents to St. Louis when he was still 
a child. Destined for the priesthood he was trained at the 
Roman Catholic Seminary, Niagara. On the breaking out of 
war between the States he entered the Confederate Army S.s 
Chaplain. He went abroad in 1873, when his great desire to 
have an audience with Pope Pius IX. was gratified. Return- 
ing to Am-^rica, the rest of his years were passed in quietly 
fulfilling his priestly duties, and in study and writing. He 
died at Louisville, in a Franciscan Monastery, Aug. 22, 1886. 



Literature in the South 123 

complete in finish as the author is; tho' he thinks 
they are true in tone. His feet know more of the 
humble steps that lead up to the altar and its mys- 
teries, than of the steeps that lead up to Parnassus 
and the Home of the Muses. And souls were al- 
ways more to him than songs." And again in the 
"Sentinel Songs" : — 

**I sing with a voice too low 
To be heard beyond to-day, 
In minor keys of my people's woe, 
But my songs pass away. 

To-morrow hears them not— 
To-morrow belongs to fame — 
My songs, like the birds', will be forgot, 
And forgotten shall be my name. 

And yet who knows ? Betimes 

The grandest songs depart, 

While the gentle, humble and low-toned rhymes 

Will echo from heart to heart." 

It is true that he wrote other than war songs, but 
Southern people love best the ''Gray ballads." The 
lines in memory of his brother, 

"Young as the youngest who donned the gray, 
True as the truest who wore it," 

have touched many a heart all but breaking in mem- 
ory of a brave boy gone forth to do battle and die. 

"On the trampled breast of the battle plain 
Wlicre the foremost ranks had nestled, 



124 Lite:ratur]^ in the South 

On his pale, pure face not a mark of pain 
(His mother dreams they will meet again) 
The fairest form amid all the slain, 
Like a child asleep he nestled. 

In the solemn shades of the woods that swept 
The field where his comrades found him, 
They buried him there, and the hot tears crept 
Into strong men's eyes that had seldom wept, 
His mother — God pity her — smiled and slept, 
Dreaming her arms were around him." 

Simple enough, these lines, and by their very sim- 
plicity finding their way to many a heart, for the 
world is full of men and women, to whom like 
Pompilia, it is "not given to know much," but who 
are strong to love and feel, and learned in Suffer- 
ing's School. 

''Sentinel Songs," "The March of the Deathless 
Dead," "The Sword of Lee," "The Conquered Ban- 
ner," all breathe the spirit of passionate devotion 
to the cause that had failed with the deep sadness 
of defeat. They were written in a time when re- 
gret for the past was far stronger than hope for the 
future, and his poems voiced the feelings of the 
South. Southern hearts were with him when he 
wrote : — 

"Furl that banner, softly, slowly! 
Treat it gently — it is holy — 
For it droops above the dead. 
Touch it not — unfold it never, 
Let it droop there, furled forever, 
For its people's hopes are dead." 



Literature in the South 125 

"The Prayer of the South" is the reh'gious ex- 
pression of the bereaved. Sorrow, the cry for 
strength, resignation, prayer for forgiveness to chil- 
dren and to foes, — all are here : — 

"Father, I kneel 'mid ruin, wreck, and grave — 
A desert waste, where all was erst so fair — 
And for my children and my foes I crave 
Pity and pardon. Father, hear my prayer!" 

"A Land without Ruins," with unchanged devo- 
tion to the past, is illumined by a flash of prophecy. 

*'For out of the gloom future brightness is born, 
As after the night comes the sunrise of morn." 

Time passed, and in 1878 Yellow Fever visited 
the South. The North was quick in generous giving 
of material aid and sympathy and service. Deeply 
touched Father Ryan wrote "Reunited," just ten 
years after he had written "The Conquered Ban- 



"The Northland, strong in love, and great, 

Forgot the stormy days of strife; 

Forgot that souls with dreams of hate 

Of unforgiveness e'er were rife. 

Forgotten was each thought and hushed; 

Save — she was generous and her foe was crushed. 
******** 

*Thou givest me back my sons again,' 
The Southland to the Northland cries; 
For all my dead on battle plain. 
Thou biddest my dying now uprise: 



126 LiTKRATURS: IN TH^ SoUTH 

I Still my sobs, I cease my tears, 

And thou hast recompensed my anguished years. 
******** 

Blessings on thine every wave, 

Blessings on thine every shore. 

Blessings that from sorrows save, 

Blessings giving more and more, 

For all thou gavest thy Sister land, 

Oh! Northland, in thy generous deed and grand.** 

The war songs were ended. 

WRITERS 0? WAR POETRY. 

Francis Scott Key — 1 780-1 843 — Poems, 1857. 
Theodore O'Hara — 1820- 1867 — Bivouac of the 

Dead, and other poems. 
James Ryder Randall — 183 9- 1808 — Maryland, my; 

Maryland, and other poems. Arlington, 

Cameo Bracelet, and others. 
Albert Pike — 1 809-1 891 — Hymns to the Gods, 

1839. Poems. 
Henry Timrod — 1 829- 1 ^6y — Poems. 
Francis Orrery Ticknor — 1 822-1 874 — Poems, 1879. 
John Reuben Thompson — 1823-1873 — Poems. 
James Gordon McCabe — 1841 — Ballads of Battle 

and Bravery, 1873. 
Abram Joseph Ryan — 1 839-1 886 — Poems, 



Lite;raturi; in the: South 127 



IX. 

LITE^RATUR^ IN THK SOUTH SINC^ 1860. 

The years of the war between the States were 
not favorable to the cause of Hterature, which found 
almost its only expression in songs of war. Father 
Ryan and Timrod and Hayne were writing during 
the war and after its close; though, for Timrod, 
life's unequal struggle was not long continued. 
Lanier, though he had begun to write, did not reach 
his full stature as a poet until later. Hayne lived 
and wrote longer, his life, full enough of pathos as 
it was, crowned with calm and peace. The history 
of literature has few more striking contrasts than 
shown here in the outpouring of our purest, highest, 
and most imaginative poetry in a desolated, poverty- 
stricken land to a ruined and broken people. 

Fuller study is given elsewhere to Timrod, Hayne, 
and Lanier, and Father Ryan's War Songs have 
been noted. A word or two more, however, as to 
Father Ryan's later poems may not be amiss. 

These poems are characterized by sweetness, pur- 
ity, and sincerity, with a pensive, religious feeling. 
He never claimed for himself the title of poet, and 
never reached the higher poetic plane. There is a 
winning melody, notwithstanding imperfections of 
technique, and, in many cases, an exaggerated effect 
of rhyme and alliteratioa But the suffering do not 



128 Literature: in the: South 

often study technique in the sweet verses that bring 
them comfort or sympathy, and there is a quaUty in 
Father's Ryan's verses that bears them straight to 
many a heart. He found his songs, he says, in the 
*Valley of silence." 

"In the hush of the Valley of Silence 

I dream all the songs that I sing; 

And the music floats down the dim Valley, 

Till each finds a word for a wing, 

That to hearts like the Dove of the Deluge, 

A message of peace they may bring. 
******** 

Do you ask me the place of the Valley, 
Ye hearts that are harrowed by care? 
It lieth afar between mountains, 
And God and His angels are there: 
And one is the dark Mount of Sorrow, 
And one the bright Mountain of Prayer." 

When his health failed, and he grew weary, he ut- 
tered a cry for rest : — 

"My feet are wearied, and my hands are tired, 

My soul oppressed — 
•And I desire what I have long desired, 

Rest — only rest. 
'Tis hard to toil, when toil is almost vain 

In barren ways ; 
'Tis hard to sow — and never garner grain. 

In harvest days." 

Not a great while after he wrote these lines the rest 
he longed for came to him. 



Literature in the South 129 

In Virginia, Mrs. Margaret J. Preston,* a native 
of Pennsylvania, but entirely Southern in her sym- 
pathies, had written songs of war and ''Beechen- 
brook," a poem of the Lost Cause once widely read. 
In the years following the war, she became a fre- 
quet contributor to Southern papers and magazines, 
writing biographical articles on Southern writers, 
as well as poems of delicate sentiment and earnest 
religious faith. During her busy life she published 
several volumes of poems, and these reflected, with 
a simple clearness, the sweet nature of the writer. 
"Calling the Angels In" has a tender pathos of re- 
gret :— 

**We mean to do it. Some day, some day, 
We mean to slacken this feverish rush 
That is wearing our very souls away, 
And grant to our hearts a hush 
That is only enough to let them hear 
The footsteps of angels drawing near. 

******** 

We've seen them afar at high noontide. 
When fiercely the world's hot flashings beat; 
Yet never have bidden them turn aside, 
To tarry in converse sweet; 
Nor prayed them to hallow the cheer we spread. 
To drink of our wine and break our bread. 
******** 



♦Margaret Junkin Preston was born in Philadelphia in 1820, 
but removed, with her parents, in _ 1848, to Lexington, Vir- 
ginia, her father, Dr. Junkin, becoming president of Washing- 
ton University. In 1857 she married Professor J. T. L. Pres- 
ton, of the Virginia Military Institute. Her death occurred in 
Baltimore in 1897. 



130 Litisrature: in the: South 

To-day that we dreamed of comes at length 

When tired of every mocking guest, 

And broken in spirit and shorn of strength, 

We drop at the door of rest, 

And wait and watch as the day wanes on — 

But the angels we meant to call are gone!" 

Irwin Russell, of Mississippi, entered upon the 
well-trodden path of Law, but liked music better 
than law, and poetry better than music. In 1876, 
being then just twenty-three years old, his first con- 
tribution to Scribner's Monthly was published. For 
two years he continued writing for that and other 
periodicals, then, in the closing days of 1878, he 
went to New York. R. W. Gilder, H. C. Bunner, 
and others became his friends, and he found him- 
self in touch with the literary life of the great city. 
But he fell ill, and lived but a few months after his 
return to the South, poor, disappointed and suffer- 
ing. 

Probably Irwin Russell never knew all that he had 
accomplished. For he had been among the first to 
recognize and lead others to see the pathos as well 
as the humor of the life of the humble folk of the 
plantation. Page speaks of his indebtedness to Rus- 
sell: — "It was the light of his genius," he says, 
"shining through his dialect poems — first of dialect 
poems then and still first — that led my feet in the 
direction I have since tried to follow." At any rate, 
the appearance of "Christmas-night in the Quarters" 
is indicative of a change coming to pass in the dif- 
ferent departments of Southern Literature, for writ- 
ers now found work more generally in interpreting 
life close at hand. 



LlTKRATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH I3I 

Poetry is not without its representatives in the 
South to-day. John B. Tabb,* the friend and prison 
mate of Lanier, now a priest in the Roman CathoHc 
Church, writes verses pure in conception, concen- 
trated in thought, and polished in workmanship, 
though without high imaginative power or great 
warmth of feehng. Perhaps he has written nothing 
altogether so good as his tribute to Lanier. Death's 
parting was without its sting to the friend who 
wrote : — 

"Upon the self same bosom we recline," 

and again, 

"There, of dreams unsepulchred and free 

Thou keepest watchful memory of me, 
A lingering phantom of the mortal shade." 

As restrained in expression and as polished in tech- 
nique, but with a living warmth, are the poems of 
William Hayne, the son of Paul Hayne. His un- 
usual power of expressing much in few words is 
shown in a number of his short poems, but notably, 
I think, in *'The Mystic Pole," characterized by 
genuine imaginative imagery. 

Very different is the Georgia poet, Frank Stanton, 

*John B. Tabb was born in Amelia County, Virginia, March 
22, 1845. He served in the Confederate Army as Captain's 
Clerk in the Blockade Runner, Robert E. Lee, for two years. 
He was captured and imprisoned at Point Lookout till near 
the close of the war. He was ordained priest in 1874. For a 
number of years he has held a chair in St Charles College, 
ElJicQtt f jty, Md 



132 Literature in the South 

the singer of homely every-day songs of cheery 
spirit and wholesome philosophy. He holds this to 
be "3. pretty good world," and makes no attempt to 
solve its problems. 

He has given us some tender verses of childhood : 
—"Dear Little Fellow," "Dat's My Li'l Boy," "The 
Little One Away," and others, and some of simple 
religious faith, as "The Prayer for Rain," and "The 
Later Rest." "How the Old Man Went Home" tells 
lovingly of the death of an old servant friend. His 
"Chorus of Singers" may be taken for the modest 
preface to his own volume : — 

"Chorus of singers, day by day — 
Thick in the world they throng; 
But mark, ye Masters ! the weary way 
Is sweet for the sake of song." 

There has been no period in the history of our 
literature when the voice of the political writer has 
been silent. After the close of the war it was still 
heard. There was less abstract argument than justi- 
fication by historical treatment of the great events of 
the past few years. Men who had taken prominent 
parts in the great historical drama, now used their 
pens. Jefferson Davis wrote "The Rise and Fall of 
the Confederacy"; Alexander H. Stephens, whose 
remarkable mental vigor was in so marked contrast 
to his physical feebleness, wrote his "History of the 
War Between the States" and other historical works. 
These books are the most valuable of the class to 
which they belong. Edward A. Pollard, of Vir- 
ginia, who had edited the "Richmond Examiner" 
during the war, published, in 1866, a full history of 



LiTERATURlS IN THK SoUTH I33 

the war, "The Lost Cause," a very important con- 
tribution to our historical Hterature. 

And there were biographies innumerable; some, 
as Dabney's "Life of Jackson," and Cooke's "Life 
of Lee," of high literary excellence; others char- 
acterized mainly by indiscriminate praise of the sub- 
ject. Meanwhile Gayarre, in Louisiana, was still 
writing history and weaving the romance of the 
old Spanish and French legends into literary form. 
Historical literature in the South owes much to him. 
It would be interesting to trace the extension of in- 
terest in historical study during recent years. In 
every State there are students and writers, who, by 
collecting and making public matters of local and 
State interest are laying the best foundation for the 
future historian. Societies are being formed for the 
study of loc?.l history. State historical societies are 
formed. Museums are founded for the preservation 
of documents and other relics. Old letters and 
papers are made to yield up their treasure. Old sol- 
diers are writing the story of the past ; the private's 
recollections supplement the general's report. No 
facts are too great in their import, none are too 
small, for the workers here, who, it may be, "are 
building better than they know," and are laying the 
foundation for the broad, philosophical work of the 
scientific historian. The works of Woodrow Wil- 
son, Chas. C. Jones, the late Edward McCrady and 
others meet the demands of modern scholarship in 
history. 

More than twenty years after the war, when the 
mists of prejudice were clearing away, a biography 
was written, as widely read North and South as a 
novel. This was "The Life of a Southern Planter," 



134 Lite:ratur^ in th^ South 

by Mrs. Susan Dabney Smedes, ?.nd was the story 
of her father. "One of Thackeray's men," was 
Gladstone's comment, so sincere, unaffected, and 
manly was the character drawn. The book gives a 
charming account of the old Southern life, all told 
in the most modest and simple fashion. It was 
published in England as well as in this country, and 
was as popular there as here. A more recent work, 
and one of fascinating interest, is by Henry A. 
Wise, also of Virginia, "The End of an Era," the 
story of the closing days of the Confederacy. 

The period following the war has not been with- 
out its oratory. The brilliant L. Q. C. Lamar and 
Zebulon B. Vance will be remembered. Robert 
Toombs, "The Great Unreconstructed," was mak- 
ing his fiery, dogmatic speeches, though he refused 
to reinstate himself in citizenship by taking the oath 
of allegiance. His style in legal pleading was thus 
characterized. "Concentrated fire was his policy. 
A single sentence would win his case. A big thought 
compressed into small compass was fatal to his foe." 

A younger man, too young to have taken part in 
the war, was Henry Grady. His work on the 
"Atlanta Constitution" made his name widely 
known, and was of no little influence in the de- 
velopment of Southern industries. His "New 
South" was a loving tribute to the old, with a frank 
recognition of the new. He drew pictures of the 
old life with tender touches. Slavery was gone, 
and its unlovely aspects others had shown; Grady 
showed the personal devotion of the Slave to his 
Master, and his loyalty to the families and homes 
left in his charge: — "Unmarshalled, the black bat- 
talions moved patiently to the fields in the morning 



Literature in the South 135 

to feed the armies their idleness would have starved, 
and at night gathered anxiously at 'the big house 
to hear the news from Marster,' though conscious 
that his victory made their chains enduring. Every- 
where humble and kindly. The body guard of the 
helpless. The rough companion of the little ones. 
The observant friend. The silent sentry in his lowly 
cabin. The shrewd counsellor. And when the dead 
came home a mourner at the open grave." Grady 
wrote of the old society with its old standards, of 
the intellectual force of Southern men, of their old 
leadership in political affairs, and their distinction 
in war; of humanity's debt to such surgeons as Sims 
and Macdonald, and to the discoverer of anaesthesia, 
Crawford Long; and, finally, of the Southern sol- 
dier who lived to his home, such as remained to him 
— poverty-stricken, defeated, but with courage in 
his heart, and the spirit to accomplish the building 
anew of a social, material, and political system. 

There were some even in the sad South of Re- 
construction days who had hearts for laughter, and 
who lightened the weary way by flashes of humor. 
Dr. Bagley, of Virginia, under the name of "Moziz 
Addums," had, for some time preceding the war, 
been lecturing to amused audiences and contributing 
to periodicals. He succeeded John H. Thompson 
in '59 as editor of the Southern Literary Messen- 
ger," and was State Librarian of Virginia from 
1870 to 1878. A well known and quite typical se- 
lection from his writings is the account of Rubin- 
stein's playing. Wm. T. Thompson, a native of 
Ohio, but from early years a resident of the South, 
was the author of the popular ''Major Jones" books, 
relating the travels, courtship, and other events of 



136 LlT^RATURie IN THi: SoUTH 

that gentleman's experience in humorous fashion, 
the humor in these and in most other writing of 
the kind, resting upon oddities of situation and in- 
cident rather than character. Charles Henry Smith, 
better known as ''Bill Arp," after serving with seri- 
ousness in the Confederate Army, served the South 
in quite another fashion, by writing sketches of 
Georgia life, and sending out articles which had 
much humor, but were not all humor, containing 
besides a homely and practical wisdom. Another 
Georgian, Richard Malcolm Johnston, wrote the 
"Dukesborough Tales," that bringing the "Cracker" 
with all his characteristics to the front, delighted 
readers all over the country. Besides fiction and 
humorous sketches, Mr. Johnston has written a 
"Life of Alexander H. Stephens," and a "History 
of English Literature," but none of his other books 
have attained such popularity as the "Dukesborough 
Tales." 

Joel Chandler Harris, of Atlanta, brought the 
negro into literature; not for instruction or argu- 
ment, or with a theory to prove, but simply for 
entertainment and delight, with his folk lore and 
superstitions, peculiar humor, and plantation wis- 
dom. For generations children, both black and 
white, had been charmed by tales of the "creeters" 
told in the nursery of the "big house," or before 
some fireplace of "the quarters." There was an ad- 
venture of "Brer Rabbit," or "Brer Bar," for every 
situation suggested, and many a "little boy," or 
"Marse John," or "Miss Sallie," before would have 
found life the duller without these tales. So when 
Harris re-told them in such dialect as he alone can 
reproduce they charmed Southerners by their verjr 



LlTKRATUR^ IN THE SoUTH 137 

familiarity as they charmed Northerners by their 
novelty. Uncle Remus, and Tempy, and Daddy 
Jake, and the rest, are true to life — we know them 
all. 

Ethnologists and Folk Lore students claim these 
tales, but the first purpose of Harris in collecting 
them was not to instruct, but simply to amuse and 
entertain. Students of Folk Lore, however, will 
find it interesting to compare these stories with those 
current among the Louisiana Creoles as collected and 
published by Dr. Alcee Fortier, of New Orleans. 
For Dr. Fortier is doing much valuable work in this 
line, and is arousing a wider interest in Folk Lore 
than has been common heretofore in the South. 

This period has been, above all, the age of fiction 
in the South. Thomas Nelson Page, of Virginia, 
a boy during the war, too young to enlist, but old 
enough to understand the great passing events, see- 
ing much of the fighting, visiting camps, and meet- 
ing soldiers of both armies, remembering the days 
of the old regime, and taking up life's work in the 
new, was well fitted to write as he has written, 
stories of Southern life. For Page has drawn the 
Southern gentlefolk as no other has ever done. Per- 
haps he has written more than is wise, and his fame 
would better rest upon his earlier short stories than 
upon his later novels. ''Marse Chan," "Meh Lady'* 
— what a pathos, what humor, what tenderness 
marks them ! No chapter on Southern life and char- 
acter in any history has ever portrayed that life 
and character at its best so truly, so faithfully — and 
none the less so because of the sympathetic touch — . 
as Page has done in these stories. 

Page Cable, Miss Murfree, and Allen make a 



138 IvITe:rature: in thd South 

strong group of fiction writers. All were eminently 
successful in the short story before producing novels. 
Cable found his field in the delineation of Creole 
life, his ''Old Creole Days," ''The Grandissimes," 
"Madame Delphine," and "Dr. Sevier" delighting 
all of his readers except the Creoles themselves. 
Miss Murfree's vigorous drawings of the moun- 
tain folk brought into fiction quite another type; 
and Allen, who came before the public with "Flute 
and Violin," had his theme in Kentucky life. Allen's 
earlier writings had an historical background. The 
romance of the past touched him, and the old types 
he made live again, the forgotten conditions he 
brought to mind, the old scenes he made real. His 
more recent works, however, have had their motive 
in moral and spiritual problems, and not in local 
incidents or interests, and with respect to these later 
works he stands quite alone. A critical estimate of 
the style of these fiction writers must award the 
palm to Allen in the use of pure and beautiful Eng- 
lish. In all of his works there are exquisite pass- 
ages which one will read and read again. For 
Allen is a strong thinker, and clear in his expression. 
But added to this there is the charm of beauty and 
grace in his wording. 

Other gifted writers of fiction are Grace King, 
writing like Cable of Creole life, but not from 
Cable's point of view. Fox, of Kentucky, whose 
"Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come" was altogether 
one of the best novels of the year it was written; 
and Miss Mary Johnston, of Virginia, the writer 
of historical romances, full of vigor and dramatic 
movement. Ellen Glasgow, of Virginia, has recent- 



Literature in the South 139 

ly attained popularity in "The Voice of a People" 
and "The Deliverance." 

The work of Southern men in the field of lit- 
erary criticism must be noted. The late Dr. William 
M. Baskervill did much to awaken interest in South- 
ern letters. Dr. Charles Alphonso Smith, of North 
Carolina, and Dr. Charles William Kent, of Vir- 
ginia, are widely known for scholarly writings, care- 
ful studies of literature, that must hold their place 
with the best contributions of their kind. Dr. 
Henry N. Snyder, especially to be noted as the sym- 
pathetic critic of Southern literature, and Dr. Alcee 
Fortier, well known in the field of Louisiana Folk 
Lore, History, and Literature, will be remembered. 
Dr. William P. Trent, to whose acute critical per- 
ception is added a fine enthusiasm for the great in 
life or literature, is performing a service to literary 
criticism whch must be gladly recognized by 
students of literature generally. Dr. Basil Gilder- 
sleeve contributes to classical scholarship. 

So, we have briefly traced the course of Southern 
literature through the successive periods of early 
chronicle and description, of impassioned eloquence, 
of literary expansion and expression in varied 
forms; political storm and stress again developed 
political writers, then came a time of song, and a 
second period of varied expression. So much for 
the past. The future, whatever its development, 
must be the outgrowth of that past. The con- 
tinuity of history will not be denied. Conditions 
change, and the literature of the future will mirror 
those conditions as the literature of the past has 
mirrored past conditions. No literature can appeal 
1^ ^e universal that rests upon a narrow basis. But 



140 tlT^RATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH 

the literature that without self -consciousness, and 
without thought of sectional limitations, truly re- 
flects the life of thought or action of any people, 
does appeal to the universal. The fact that the best 
writing of Southern men and women to-day, when 
most distinctive, is characterized by 'a breadth and 
fairness not common among any people, may be an 
earnest of the character of our literary expression 
in the years to come. 



WRITINGS 01? THE PERIOD. 

Margaret Junkin Preston (1820-1897). Poems. 

James Barron Hope (1829-1887). Poems. 

Irwin Russell ( 1 853-1 879). Poems. 

Timrod (1829- 1867). Poems. 

Hayne (183 0-1886). Poems. 

Lanier ( 1 842-1881). Poems. Development of the 
Novel. 

S. T. WalHs (1816-1894). Poems. Prose. Arti- 
cles. 

"Father" Tabb (1845- ). Poems. 

William Hayne (1856- ). Poems. 

Frank Stanton (1858- ). Poems. 

Jefferson Davis (i 808-1 889). Rise and Fall of the 
Southern Confederacy. 

Alexander H. Stephens (i8i2-'83). War Between 
the States. History of United States. 

Edward A. Pollard (i828-'72). The Lost Cause. 

Susan Dabney Sm^edes (1840- ). Life of a 
Southern Planter. 

Henry A. Wise. The End of an Era. Diomed. 

Robert Toombs (i8io-'85). Speeches. 



Lite:rature in the South 141 

Henry W. Grady (1850-1889). The New South. 
Speeches. 

WilHam P. Trent. Life of Simms. Life of Lee. 
Southern Statesmen of the Old Regime. South- 
ern Writers. John Milton. American Liter- 
ature. 

George William Bagby (1828-1883). John M. 
Daniel's Latch Key. What I Did With My 
Fifty Millions. Letters of Moziz Addums. 
Meekin's Twins. 

William T. Thompson (1812-1882). Major Jones' 
Courtship, etc. 

Charles Henry Smith (Bill Arp), 1826- ? Bill 

Arp's Scrap Book. Farm and Fireside. School 
History of Georgia. 

Richard Malcolm Johnston (1822- ). Old 
Mark Langston. Dukesborough Tales. Oghee- 
chee Cross Firings. 

Henry Watterson (1840- ). Oddities of South- 
ern Life and Character. Addresses. 

Joel Chandler Harris (1848- ). Uncle Remus 
Stories. Daddy Jake. Minga, and other 
stories. 

Alcee Fortier. Louisiana Studies. Folk Lore in 
Louisiana. 

Thomas Nelson Page (1853- )• I^^ Ole Vir- 
ginia. Red Rock. On New Found River. 
Gordon Keith. Bred in the Bone. Social Life 
in the Old South. Elsket. The Old South. 

George Cable (1844- ). Old Creole Days. The 
Grandissimes. IMadame Delphine. The Silent 
South. Bonaventure. John March, Southern- 
er. Creoles of Louisiana. 



142 LlT^RATUR^ IN THK SoUTH 

Mary Noailles Murfree. (1850- ). Prophet of 
the Great Smoky. On the Tennessee Moun- 
tains. Keedon Bluffs, etc. 

James Lane Allen. (1849- )• Flute and Vio- 
lin. A Kentucky Cardinal. The Choir Invisi- 
ble. Mettle of the Pasture. The Reign of 
Law. 

Grace King. (1852- ). Balcony Stories. Mon- 
sieur Motte. History of Louisiana. 

Mary Johnston. (1870). Prisoners of Hope. To 
Have and to Hold. Aubrey. 

John Fox. The Kentuckians. Crittenden. The 
Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come. 

John Harben. The Georgians. Ann Boyd. 

Woodrow Wilson. A History of the American 
People. The State. 



Literature in the South 143 



X. 

HENRY TIMROD. 

In the early forties two boys, the poet's destiny 
written on the brow of each, sat side by side in a 
Charleston school-room. They were friends then 
and were friends through life. These lads were 
Henry Timrod and Paul Hayne. And Hayne, — 
generous, sympathetic Hayne — understood even 
then, when others might not always understand the 
shy, silent, and delicate boy whom he thus describes : 
— ''Modest and diffident, with a nervous utterance, 
but with melody ever in his heart and on his lips. 
Though always slow of speech, he was yet, like 
Burns, quick to learn. The chariot wheels might jar 
in the gate through which he tried to drive his 
winged steeds, but the horses were of celestial tem- 
per and the car purest gold." Yet, though shy and 
delicate, the young Timrod was not morbid, min- 
gling freely in the sports of his companions, and 
still happier when rambling through the woods or 
country roads. 

Henry Timrod's father was a poet, and of no 
mean ability. Washington Irving pronounced his 
lines "To Time the Old Traveler" as fine as any 
lyric Tom Moore had written. His lines to the 
mocking bird deserve a place with the best poetry 
of their kind. During the Seminole War, he com- 



144 Literature in the South 

manded the German Fusiliers — ^volunteers — and lost 
his life in consequence of disease contracted by ex- 
posure during the campaign. Timrod was the prod- 
uct of his inheritance. From his mother he derived 
a passionate love of nature. She delighted, and her 
children delighted with her, in Nature's gladness 
and Nature's revelations. Mabie has compared her 
influence to that of Goethe's mother over her poet 
son, "a kind of visible Providence of the imagina- 
tion — one who recognized the double parentage of 
her child, and who made him at home in the world 
of Nature, of sentiment ,of beauty, and of gladness, 
where poets are not only born but made." 

Timrod's education, begun in the Charleston 
schools, was continued at the University of Georgia. 
There, notwithstanding the disadvantages of ill 
health — for he had been delicate all his life — and of 
poverty, he studied and worked, and stored his mind 
with classical literature. He delighted in the Roman 
poets, Horace and Virgil especially appealing to him. 
Still greater was the inspiration he derived from 
English writers. To Spenser, Shakespeare, and Mil- 
ton he has acknowledged his debt, and he was also 
strongly affected by Burns, by Wordsworth, and, at 
a later time, by Tennyson. It is one thing to study 
literature for culture, quite another to revel in it 
as did Timrod. 

It was the natural thing in the South at that day 
for young men of culture to turn to the law, but 
after a short trial it was plain to Timrod that he 
was not for the law nor the law for him. He en- 
deavored to secure a professorship in a college, but 
failed to do so, and became tutor in the family of 
a Carolina planter. He had a lofty conception of 



Literature in the South 145 

the teacher's calling, and fulfilled the duties of the 
position with that conscientiousness inspired by rev- 
erence for the work itself. During his leisure hours 
he gave himself to study, and to writing the poems 
which were published in his first volume. 

Despite struggle and disappointment and poverty 
— for, from the death of the father, the Timrods 
had been in straitened circumstances — those years 
of life in Charleston after his college days had their 
happiness, and were rich in congenial associations. 
Among his friends were Paul Hayne, George S. 
Bryan, William Gilmore Simms, Dr. Bruns, and 
others who appreciated his genius, and who loved 
him as men love but few. Dr. Bruns pictures him 
to us so that we seem to see the square, almost stern, 
jaw, the large mouth, with the sensitive lips, the 
deep-set gray eyes under heavy brows, eyes ''full of 
a melancholy and pleading tenderness which attract- 
ed attention to his face at once, as the face of one 
who had thought and suffered much. His friends 
knew him for what he was, but in general society 
he was shy and undemonstrative, while with stran- 
gers the diffident, stammering speech ceased alto- 
gether, and he became a silent listener. "The key 
to his social character," continues Dr. Bruns, "was 
to be found in the feminine gentleness of his tem- 
perament. He shrank from noisy debate and from 
the wordy clash of argument as from a blow. It 
stunned and bewildered him, and left him in the 
melee alike incapable of defense or attack. And yet 
when some burly protagonist would thrust himself 
too rudely into the ring, and try to bear down op- 
position by sheer vehemence of declaration, from the 
corner where he sat ensconced in unregarded silence, 



146 Literature: in the South 

he would suddenly fling out some sharp, swift peb- 
ble of thought, which had been slowly rounding, and 
smite with an aim so keen and true as rarely failed 
to bring down the boastful Anakim." One wishes 
there were fuller records of those little gatherings — 
the meetings of "Father Abbott"* and his disciples, 
the informal and frequent dinners, and oyster sup- 
pers, and whist parties, or the hours spent in con- 
versation, were the theme literature or politics. 
Charleston was at the time the city of a society 
aristocratic and exclusive, as well as wealthy, and 
the power of tradition was strong. Yet, in the lit- 
tle group we are considering — numbering, among 
others, Simms, who was not an aristocrat ; Timrod, 
who had known poverty all his life ; and Hayne, who 
belonged to one of the most aristocratic families of 
the country — there was a society recognizing 
stronger bonds than social traditions. In later years, 
when these friends were parted by the changes war 
had brought, one and all looked back with longing 
regret to those hours of congenial intercourse, and 
the friendships then formed were not broken while 
life lasted. 

In i860 Timrod published his first volume of 
poems. It was favorably received by the critics, but 
It was not a time for poetry. Men's minds were 
rather filled with thoughts of war and of rumors of 
war. So the little volume in which appeared with 
other poems, "A Vision of Poesy," "The Lily Con- 
fidante" and "The Past," was read by few. This 
was a deep disappointment to the author. 

But Timrod's own nature was deeply stirred. He 

*Simms. 



Lite:raturk in the South 147 

heard the call to war and heeded it, and straightway- 
volunteered for service. Still he wrote, and during 
the first years of the war sent forth those strong 
poems, "The Cotton Boll," "Carolina," "A Call to 
Arms," "Ethnogenesis," and some others. Can one 
read them to-day, after forty years have passed 
away and the issues that called them into being have 
ceased to be living issues, without a quickened pulse 
and a stronger heart beat? In their martial strains 
we hear the clarion note, but we hear also the peo- 
ple's heart cry. We recall the story of the poet 
school master whom certain Greeks sent to their 
allies who had asked for a general, and a new light 
is thrown on the old story. Yet, and herein lies 
pathos, nearly all of these war songs close with an 
invocation to peace. When he wrote his hymn for 
Christmas war had long distressed the land, and men 
had no heart for mirth. The theme of the poet's 
prayer was peace : — 

"Peace in the crowded town, 
Peace in a thousand fields of waving grain, 
Peace in the highway and the flowery lane, 
Peace on the wind-swept down ! 

Peace on the whirring marts, 
Peace where the scholar thinks, the hunter roams, 
Peace, God of Peace ! peace, peace, in all our homes. 
And peace in all our hearts !" 

A plan was made by Timrod's friends for pub- 
lishing an illustrated edition of his poems in London, 
but, owing to the stress of war, the plan was never 
carried to fulfilment. 



148 Literature in the South 

However ardent in spirit, Timrod was physically 
unfit for the soldier's life, and was obliged to retire 
from active service. After the battle of Shiloh he 
joined the Army of the West as war correspondent, 
but was forced by ill health to give up that work 
also, and in 1864 he went to Columbia as editor of 
the "South CaroHnian." 

When the war ended his plans were destroyed, 
his health broken, ruin and sorrow the part of every 
Southern home and of every Southern State. The 
friends, who in other days would have helped him, 
now gave him love and sympathy and appreciation, 
and that was all they had to give. During the war 
he had married Miss Goodwin, the "Katie" of his 
well-known poem. He had now wife and child de- 
pendent upon him, and his strength was failing fast. 
Furniture and silver were sold to buy bread, and so 
great was his need that he wrote to Hayne he would 
consign every line he had written to oblivion for 
"one hundred dollars in hand." In a letter from 
Simms to Hayne about the same time is this passage 
concerning Timrod: — "He can earn nothing where 
he is, has not a dollar, goes to bed hungry every 
night, and suffers from bad health. It is the morti- 
fying thing to all of us, that none of us can help him. 
Bruns and myself are both living from hand to 
mouth, and not unfrequently the hand carries noth- 
ing to the cavernous receptacle." A short while after 
this letter was written, however, Timrod secured 
clerical work in the office of the Governor of South 
Carolina by which he earned enough for the bare 
necessities of existence. 

During the dark days his little son died. He 
writes of the child's brief life and death in the ex- 



Literature in the South 149 

quisitely pathetic lines "Our Willie," but he does 
not dwell upon his grief. 

"We may weave at will for each other's ear 

Of that life, and that love, and that early doom, 

The tale which is shadowed here : 

To us alone it will always be 

As fresh as our own misery; 

But enough, alas ! for the world is said, 

In the brief 'Here lieth' of the dead!'* 

His own health grew more feeble, and those who 
loved him saw the beginning of the end. In the 
latter part of the summer of 1867 he made a short 
visit to Paul Hayne at Copse Hill, near Augusta. 
Very tenderly has Paul Hayne written the story 
of those days of sad, sweet memories : — "We would 
rest," he says, "on the hillsides in the swaying, 
golden shadows, watching together the Titanic 
masses of snow-white clouds which floated slowly 
and vaguely through the sky, suggesting by their 
form, whiteness, or serene motion, despite the sea- 
son, flotillas of icebergs upon Arctic seas. * * * 
But the evenings with their gorgeous sunsets, 'roll- 
ing down like a chorus' and the 'gray-eyed, melan- 
choly gloaming' were the favorite hours of the day 
with him. He would often apostrophize twilight in 
the language of Wordsworth's sonnet : — 

'Hail twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour! 
Not dull art thou as undiscerning night; 
But only studious to remove from sight 
Day's mutable distinctions.* " 



150 LlT^RATUR^ IN THE SoUTH 

With the first days of September, Timrod re- 
turned to Columbia, and ahnost immediately fell 
seriously ill, and there were frequent hemorrhages 
more or less severe. "I am lying supine in bed," he 
wrote to Hayne, ''forbidden to speak or make any 
exertion whatever. But I can't resist the temptation 
of dropping you a line, in the hope of calling from 
you a score or two in return. 

An awkward time this for me to be sick. We 
are destitute of funds, almost of food. But God 
will provide." This was on the sixteenth of Sep- 
tember. There were yet three weeks of suffering, 
during which he continued his work, writing sonnets, 
correcting proof sheets, when his fingers were all but 
too feeble to hold the pencil, and declaring with his 
latest breath that ''love is better than rest." As if 
with premonition, he had written "A Common 
Thought." 

"Some one draws a curtain softly 
And I watch the broadening day 
As it purples in the zenith. 
As it brightens on the lawn, 
There's a hush of death about me, 
And a whisper, 'He is gone !' " 

It is noteworthy that the most distinctive South- 
ern poets has each set forth his theory of poetry. 
Poe's theory has already been noted. Timrod held 
that it was impossible to reduce all sources to the 
simple element of beauty. "Two other elements, 
at least," he wrote, "must be added, and these are 
power, when it is developed in some noble shape, 
and truth, whether abstract or not, when it affects 



Lite:ratum: in the South 151 

the common heart of mankind." A poem must have 
one purpose and the elements composing it be so 
selected and arranged as to enforce that purpose. He 
distinguished the first flash of inspiration from the 
subsequent patient execution. And finally that 
"However abstract be his thought, the poet is com- 
pelled, by his passion-fused imagination, to give it 
life, form, or color. Hence the necessity of employ- 
ing the sensuous or concrete words of the language, 
and hence the exclusion of long words, which in 
English are nearly all purely and austerely abstract 
from the poetic vocabulary." "A Vision of Poesy," 
published in his first volume, still further sets forth 
his poetic creed. He had a high conception of the 
responsibility of genius. The moral purpose was 
strong in him. He saw Poesy clothing the earth 
with an unseen glory, sowing the needs of art, with 
her sister Science, exploring the dark recesses of 
the heart, nerving the will and elevating the desires, 
and *'touch with grace the body's meanest clay, 
while noble souls are nobler." He heard her call 
forth the sword from its scabbard, as well as still 
the tempest of passion. Poesy held sacred "all love- 
ly things and gentle," "the griefs that hallow, and 
the joys that bless." The poet must be pure. He 
must be unselfish. He must study his own soul, 
"self-reading, not self-loving." He must flee False- 
hood and "forsake all for the Truth." 

"And he must be as armed warrior strong. 
And he must be as gentle as a girl. 
And he must front, and sometimes suflfer wrong; 
For wrath, and scorn, and pride, however just, 
Fill the clear spirit's eyes with earthly dust," 



152 Lite:rature in the: South 

And finally his sympathy must be all-enfolding. 

"As the same law that moulds a planet, rounds 
A drop of dew, so the great Poet spheres 
Worlds in himself; no selfish limit bounds 
A sympathy that folds all characters, 
All ranks, all passions, and all life almost 
In its wide circle." 

In one of his sonnets, Timrod bids the poet 

"Cling to the lowly earth," for 

"The brightest stars are nearest to the earth, 

And we may track the mighty sun above, 

Even by the shadow of a slender flower. 

Always, O bard, humility is power! 

And thou mayst draw from matters of the hearth 

Truths wide as nations, and as deep as love." 

Such was Timrod's poetic creed. If he had not 
formally declared it, it might be formulated from 
the poems he has left us. 

His style is marked by a simplicity, a purity that 
is without suggestion of labored art. His clearness 
of expression has been noted by Henry Austin,* 
who says that in some passages "you forget the 
fact of reading, so wonderfully does the thought be- 
come an almost visible presence." He needs no in- 
terpreter. His verse flows in melody, and we find 
no harsh metres or involved expressions. His im- 
agination is very delicate, and refinement marks all 
that he wrote. In "Spring," to single out one poem, 

♦International Review, September, 1880. 



Literature in the South 153 

these qualities may be noted. In his pure, simple 
style he pictures the Southern spring as I know not 
who else has pictured it. 

^'Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air, 
Spring with her golden suns and silver rains." 

And when we read this poem we feel that we also 
have seen 

"A look about the leafless bowers 
As if they dreamed of flowers." 

It is significant of Timrod's troubled life that in 
the closing stanzas of this exquisite poem, we hear 
the premonitory notes of war, for when it was writ- 
ten all felt and truly that 

"Not more surely shall the spring awake 

The voice of wood or brake, 

Than she shall rouse, for all her tranquil charms, 

A million men to arms." 

Quite another note is struck in the very strong 
poem, ''Too Long, O Spirit of Storm." It is the 
cry against stagnation, against the danger beneath 
outward calm, against death in life. 

"Too long, O Spirit of Storm, 
Thy lightning sleeps in its sheath! 
I am sick to the soul of yon pallid sky, 
And the moveless sea beneath. 

Come down in thy strength on the deep? 



154 LlT^RATUR^ IN the: SouTH 

Worse dangers there are in life, 

When the waves are still, and the skies look fair, 

Than in their wildest strife." 

But the poem upon which his fame may rest is 
**The Cotton Boll." It is noble in conception and 
phrasing, and the artistic purpose is sustained 
throughout. It should be read as a whole to be at all 
appreciated. It is a strange thing that every year 
Southern High Schools and Colleges send out grad- 
uates who have never read, scarcely heard of, "The 
Cotton Boll," Lanier's ''Corn," and Hayne's 
"Wheat." The first of these, and inspired by deep 
love of our land in a time of doubt and distress, is 
"The Cotton Boll." And this brings us to the 
sources of Timrod's inspiration — love of his coun- 
try, love of Nature, and personal affections. The 
poems inspired by love of his country have been 
noticed elsewhere. They include Ethnogenesis and 
his almost perfect ode to the Confederate Dead. 
Love of Nature was almost a passion with him from 
boyhood, yet in his creed art for art's sake held no 
place. Nature was for Nature's teachings, and the 
living human interest in Nature was what appealed 
to him. In the small group of personal poems are 
"Katie," written in happy vein, graceful and deli- 
cate, the deeply pathetic "Our Willie,'* and the 
noble sonnet, written during his last illness, to Harris 
Simons. 

It is vain to speculate as to what Timrod might 
have done had he lived longer or had his circum- 
stances been other than they were. We must take 
his work as he left it, remembering that poetic value 
is not always indicated by bulk of volume. Among 



Literature: in thd South 155 

his poems are some of rare beauty, both in thought 
and form, and vital in meaning. Upon such work a 
poet's fame may well rest. His song was eminently 
the expression of his life. His life was pure, and 
moral purity shines with a heavenly radiance 
through all his writings. Poverty was his lot and 
pain his portion. There are sad notes in his music, 
but they are not bitter. When days were darkest he 
sang of hope. He did not sing of despair. He be- 
lieved in God and trusted Him with the simplicity 
of a child's loving faith. He was sincere. He was 
brave. And all that he was we find in his poetry. 



CHRONOI.OGY. 

1829 — Dec. 8 — Henry Timrod, born in Charleston, 
S. C. 

i860 — First volume of Poems published. 

1 861 — Enters Confederate Service. 

1864 — Assumes Editorship of "South Carolinian," 

at Columbia. 
1867 — Oct. 6 — Dies at Columbia. 
1873 — Edition of Poems, with a sketch of Timrod's 

life, by Paul Hayne, was published by E. 

J. Hale & Son, followed the next year by a 

second edition containing added poems. 
1899 — Publication of the Memorial Edition with 

Memoir. B. F. Johnson Co. 



156 Lit^ratur:^ in th^ South 



XL 

PAUL HAYN^. 

The ancestors of Paul Hayne came to South 
Carolina from England in colonial days, and trace 
their descent through a long line of gentle folk. 
Says a writer in "Poet's Homes" : — "The Haynes, 
of South Carolina, like the Adamses and Quincys, 
of Massachusetts, have seemed to rely for fame 
rather upon the putting forth of some new achieve- 
ment in each generation than upon any proud con- 
templation of past celebrity or renown." Indeed, the 
very name is synonymous with patriotism in South 
Carolina, recalling memories of Isaac Hayne, of 
Revolutionary fame, Robert Y. Hayne, the honored 
statesman, and Arthur Hayne, who served in three 
wars, and, in 1858, became a member of the Senate. 
Lieutenant Hayne, father of the poet, died at Pen- 
sacola, Fla., when the child was too young to retain 
memory of him. 

Paul Hayne was reared in Charleston, and edu- 
cated according to the traditions and social standards 
of his time and class. The friendship with Timrod, 
one of the most beautiful in literary history, began 
when the two gifted boys were schoolmates. When 
Hayne graduated from Charleston College he 
studied law as a matter of course, then, straight- 
way proceeded to devote himself to literature. He 



Literature: in the: South 157 

became a regular contributor to "The Southern Lit- 
erary Messenger," one of the editors of **The South- 
ern Literary Gazette," and later editor of the short- 
lived "Russell's Magazine." He did some good 
work in criticism for these publications, and made 
an honest effort to establish just standards for criti- 
cism. This was not an easy thing to do at a time 
when critics both North and South were influenced 
too much by the sectional spirit. Hayne felt that 
criticism should be above the influence of geographi- 
cal consideration. He was ready always to welcome 
good literary work from a known or unknown 
writer, but gave no praise to a poor book simply be- 
cause written by a Southerner. 

Though giving himself thus early to literature, 
Hayne was no recluse, but shared in the social life 
about him. He was at home in the aristocratic, re- 
fined, cultured, and exclusive society of Charleston. 
Moreover, Charleston was one of the literary cen- 
tres of the South, and literary men associated them- 
selves into an informal brotherhood, an "unorgan- 
ized club," which was their delight for many years. 

On May 20, 1852, he married Miss Mary Middle- 
ton Michel, daughter of an eminent French physi- 
cian ; the union proving a most happy one. In later 
years Hayne said that he did not know how he could 
nave lived through the trying years just after the 
war without the help, spiritual and material, given 
him by his wife. "Her cheerfulness, endurance, and 
loving appreciation have worked together for good. 
They have absolutely shamed me out of my despon- 
dency and heart sickness." And in "The Bonny 
Brown Hand," he pays the poet's tribute to the 



158 Litieirature: in the: South 

hand that had toiled and comforted through pov- 
erty and sickness and sadness. 

But at the time of their marriage there was no 
thought of dark days. Hayne's career as a poet had 
begun happily. In 1855, Ticknor and Fields, Bos- 
ton, published his first volume of poems; a second 
volume was published in Charleston in 1857, and a 
third in Boston, in i860. These volumes were wel- 
comed in the literary world, and brought the poet 
warm words of praise from Longfellow, Bryant, 
and Holmes. Nor, it may be said, were the cordial 
relations established with these writers disturbed 
by the trying events of war and Reconstruction so 
soon to follow. 

In early manhood it is said that he looked like 
one born to a happy estate. Mrs. Preston describes 
Lis personal appearance: — "He had the advantage 
of quite a distinguished appearance, was slightly 
built, and of medium height, with a graceful, lithe 
figure, a fine oval face, with starry, magnetic eyes 
that glowed with responsive sympathy. He had 
abundant dark hair, thrown back from a high fore- 
head, and his manner was urbane and courteous to a 
high degree." 

War became inevitable, and for a Hayne there 
was but one course. Paul Hayne at the first offered 
his services. He was placed on Governor Picken's 
staff. During the years of warfare he dedicated 
his pen to his land, and, like Timrod, wrote martial 
lyrics. These poems are characterized by a lofty 
love of country, a proud, dignified spirit. They are 
spirited, but do not thrill with fierce passion. Re- 
finement and restraint mark these songs as well as 
those of a more gracious time. He had but to lift 



Literature: in the South 159 

his eyes to see heroism and nobility, and he was 
moved to cry : — 

"Ah, foohsh souls and false! who loudly cried 
'True chivalry no longer breathes in time/ 
Look round us now; how wondrous, how sublime 
The heroic lives we witness; far and wide 
Stern vows by sterner deeds are justified; 
Self-abnegation, calmness, courage, power. 
Sway, with a rule august, our stormy hour, 
Wherein the loftiest hearts have wrought and died — • 
Wrought grandly and died smiling." 

The war ended, and Hayne, like many another, 
had "lost all save honor." His home, books, and 
furniture had been destroyed during the bombard- 
ment of Charleston, and the family plate, removed 
to Columbia, was lost on Sherman's march. All 
about him was ruin. He must begin life over again. 
He secured eighteen acres of pine land on the rail- 
road, a few miles from Augusta, Georgia, and here 
he determined to establish a home. Here, the poet 
tells us, he and his wife found themselves with 
thirty dollars between themselves and starvation. 
He built his house, as Maurice Thompson describes 
it; "a story-and-a-half cottage, rough, poorly joined, 
and roofed with clap boards. It was just such a 
house, to all outward appearances, as one sees oc- 
cupied by the trackmen's families along any rail- 
road ; but inside it was what nothing but enlightened 
love could make it — a bower of beauty. No beauty 
that money buys was there — for very little money 
ever crossed the threshold, but the invisible, imper- 
ishable beauty of sweet souls was there, transform- 



i6o Literature: in the: South 

ing everything. The place became a sort of South- 
ern Mecca to which loving folk made pilgrimages; 
and its name, 'Copse Hill' grew familiar to all the 
world. * * * No right-minded man can go to 
the lonely cot, on the poor, brush-covered hill in the 
Georgia wilderness, and fail to feel how much of 
courage it required to live there as Hayne lived, 
keeping about him all the time the serene self-con- 
trol and preserving the noble self-devotion charac- 
teristic of the man." 

He used for a desk a rough work bench the car- 
penters who built the house had left, and here he 
wrote his best poems. Through all his poverty and 
desolation he worked on bravely, and in time a 
measure of reward came. He contributed to peri- 
odicals North and South, recognition came to him 
from the leaders of literary thought here and abroad, 
and other poets were his friends. He was ever a 
student and kept abreast with the intellectual life of 
the times. Friendship was ever much to him. He 
was ever quick to recognize merit, and encourage a 
brother writer. He loved Timrod, and cared for 
his fame, brought Ticknor's poems before the world, 
and his sympathy was most sweet to Lanier. And 
so the years that passed were hard, but could not be 
all unhappy for Hayne, who — if I may here use his 
own words — 

"With unwavering eye and warrior mien. 
Walks in the shadow dauntless and serene." 

In 1872 the volume "Legends and Lyrics" was 
published by the Lippencotts. Some critics suggest- 
ed an imitation of Morris. "The 'Atlantic's* criti- 



LlT^RATUR]^ IN TH^ SoUTH l6l 

cism," wrote Hayne, "has been favorable. The edi- 
tor's only ground of artistic blame, apropos of my 
longest poems, was that they imitated Morris. I 
immediately told them that this could scarcely be 
so, when both tales, 'The Wife of Brittany,' and 
*Daphles' had been composed before Morris's name 
was known in England." Hayne had studied tech- 
nique to good purpose, knew the power of restraint, 
and these poems were marked by great beauty of 
poetic form. In the narrative poems he made use of 
the heroic couplet with unusual skill. 

Hayne had given much time to the study of the 
old English poets, and in the writing of these earlier 
poems drew his inspiration in great measure from 
the same sources. Thus ''The Wife of Brittany" 
is an old story re-told, "The Frankleyn's Tale" of 
Chaucer, of which Hayne writes : 

"An old world song, whose breezy music pours 
Through limpid channels 'twixt enchanted shores 
Steals one me wooingly from that far time 
When tuneful Chaucer wrought his lusty rhyme." 

But Hayne saw the events in a different light 
from that in which Chaucer saw them, and he tells 
the story from his own standpoint, losing the old 
simplicity, and giving it an ethical significance of 
its own. As an illustration of his treatment of the 
theme, take this passage. Amerigus learns of the 
promise his wife had lightly made to Aurelius, and 
his stern soul speaks : 

"Thou hast played with honor as a juggler's ball; 
God strikes thee from the balance, and the thrall 



1 62 Literature in the South 

Art thou, henceforth, of one vain-glorious deed. 
What ! shall we plant with rash caprice the seed 
Of bitterness, nor look for some harsh fruit 
To spring untimely from its poisonous root ?'* 

However just and righteous the indignation here 
expressed with so human a tone, the remainder of 
the speech is strained and the ethical conclusion is 
unsatisfying. 

" 'Through all, keep thine oath/ is the outraged 

lord's decree. 
*There is no choice,' he moaned, 'no choice' ; 
But, through this troublous gloom my mind discerns 
One lonely light to guide us ; lo, it burns 
Lurid, yet clear, by whose fierce flame I see, 
Aye, grief malign ! Aye, bitter destiny. 
As if God's own right hand the blazing pair 
And fiery bale did stamp on soul and brain 
The terms of doom : Shame and despair for both, 
Sorrow and heartbreak : through all, keep thine oath, 
Thou woman, self-involved, self-lost; and so 
Face the black front of this tremendous woe." 

"Daphles," another long poem, and of vigor and 
action, was suggested by the old poem "Albion's 
England," which Leigh Hunt tells us had so greatly 
moved Shelley. Something of its spirit may be 
gathered from the lines descriptive of Daphles go- 
ing forth to meet the rebellious Doracles : — 

***** Through her palace gate, 
Daphles, in unaccustomed martial state, 
A keen spear glowering in its silver hold 



tlTEjRATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH 163 

And on her brow the Argive crown of gold 

Flashed like a sunbeam, on her warriors' sight, 

Girt by her generals on a neighboring height, 

She reigned her Lybian courser while the air 

Played with the bright tress of her meteor hair, 

And on her lovely April face, the tide 

Of varied feeling — now a jubilant pride 

In those strong arms and stronger hearts below, 

And now a prescient fear did ebb and flow 

Its sensitive heaven transforming momently. 

But soon the foeman's cohorts, like a sea. 

With waves of steel, and foam of snow-white 

plumes. 
Slowly emerged from out the forest glooms, 
In splendid pomp and antique pageantry. 
An ominous pause, and then the trumpets high 
Sounded the terrible onset, and the field 
Rocked as with earthquake, and the thick air reeled 
With clangors fierce from echoing hill to hill.'* 

It was not from old world legends that Hayne's 
best inspirations came. He loved Nature with all 
of his poet's heart, and his best poetry is inspired 
by this love. He was, undoubtedly, strongly influ- 
enced by Wordsworth, but he looked upon Nature 
through his own eyes, and not through the eyes of 
another, and could at no time have been a conscious 
imitator. It was a quiet realm of beauty in which 
he lived, with pines swayed by gentle winds, drifting 
clouds, still sheets of water — these he knew in every 
phase. He declares his devotion to Nature in "Un- 
veiled." 

"I cannot tell when first I saw her face; 



164 Litijrature: in th^ South 

Vain ! vain ! I cannot tell 

When first the beauty and majestic might 

Of her calm presence, bore my soul apart 

From all low issues of the groveling world." 

He sought her in all her aspect through 

''The complex miracles of land and sea, 

And infinite marvels of the infinite air," seeming at 

times to hear "The far tone 
Of ante-natal music faintly blown 
From out the misted realm of memory ; 
The pathos and the passion of a dream." 

Observe in these quotations the rapturous love of 
Nature and insight into her moods : 

"A sun flash quivering through white chords of 



"I saw the gray clouds billowing fast and free, 
Smit by the splendor of the solemn stars. 
Then the night deepened ; wind and cloud became 
A blended tumult, crossed by spears of flame. 
While the great pines moaned like a moaning sea." 
"Above us smiled September's passionless sky, 
And touched by fragrant airs the hillside pine 
Thrilled in the mellow sunshine tenderly." 

He knew the spirit of the pine and wrote, 

"Passion and mystery murmur through their leaves, 
Passion and mystery touched by deathless pain ; 
Whose monotone of long, low anguish grieves, 
For something lost that shall not live again." 



Lite^ratur:^ in the: South 165 

Among the poems Inspired by contemplation of 
the pines are ''The Fallen Pine Cove," "The Voice 
of the Pines," "Aspect of the Pines," "The Dryad 
of the Pine," and others. 

It was when he found his limitations that Hayne 
found his strength, and his finest poems are of Na- 
ture as he knew Nature about his quiet home; of 
the pines, the mocking bird, the wheat-fields, the 
drifting clouds. He held that "No life is trivial, 
no creation small." Something has been said of 
Hayne's love of his friends, and any consideration 
of his poetry would be incomplete that did not men- 
tion at least the touching poems in memory of Tim- 
rod ; "Under the Pine," and "By the Grave of Henry 
Timrod." And we may group with these the elegies, 
"To Longfellow Dead," "Bayard Taylor Beyond 
Us," and "To Bryant Dead." The lines to his old 
friend, Samuel Lord, reveal the deep interest with 
which he regarded the future life. 

Hayne became a severe critic of his own work, 
and felt that he had begun publishing too early and 
had written too much. The student of his poetry 
will feel that this is true, and that his unusual facil- 
ity of composition was almost a misfortune. Yet 
this was in his earlier days. He was, in later years, 
a careful composer, though by no means mechanical. 
His son tells us that many of his poems were com- 
posed while he walked to and fro in his study or 
tinder the trees about his home. Yet, he continues, 
"the poetic impulse frequently came to him so spon- 
taneously as to demand immediate utterance, and he 
would turn to the fly leaf of the book in hand or on 
a neighboring shelf, and his pencil would soon re- 
cord the lines, or fragments of lines, that claimed 



1 66 Lite:rature: in th^ South 

release from his brain. The labor of revision usual- 
ly followed — sometimes promptly, but not infre- 
quently after the fervor of conception had passed 
away." He was a close student of technique, evolv- 
ing no new theories of versification, but using those 
already tried and proved. Some of his finest 
thoughts were expressed in the sonnet, that most 
difficult form of versification, which he used with 
masterly power. 

For years Hayne had dreamed of foreign travel, 
but it was not for him. He had never a great deal 
to say of disappointments, but in a letter to a friend, 
not a great while before his death, he wrote : ''The 
beauty and splendor of the ancient places of the 
earth, those after which, perhaps, I have yearned 
too deeply, it has not pleased the All wise to let me 
see and enjoy. But what matter, O friend of mine, 
what matter, if after the voyage we all must take, I 
am permitted to pass up the shining shores of the 
country imperishable and to enter a temple fairer 
than the York Minster you describe, and a tabernacle 
more majestic than Westminster, there to worship 
not amid dead men's ashes and fugues of broken 
music, but amid such light and harmony as occasion- 
ally, in moments of lofty but still fleeting spirituality 
have overwhelmed while they enchanted me ?" 

Physically, Hayne had never been strong, and so 
gradually did the end come that he seems at last 
almost to have seen through the veil. His loving 
religious faith had found expression in certain 
poems of great sweetness, as "Consumatum Est," 
"The Ultimate Trust," and "In Harbor," written 
when he felt himself drawing near to the Great Be- 
yond. A few lines from the poem "In Harbor" re- 



IvITi^rature: in th^ South 167 

veal the sweet, brave spirit, that loving peace and 
quiet, had met unfalteringly the storms of life : — 

"I think it is over, over, 
I think it is over at last ; 
Voices of foenien and lover, 
The sweet and the bitter have passed; 
Life, like a tempest of ocean. 
Hath outblown its ultimate blast. 
There's but a faint sobbing seaward, 
While the calm of the tide deepens leeward, 
And behold, like the welcoming quiver 
Of heart pulses throbbed through the river. 
Those lights in the Harbor at last, 
The heavenly Harbor at last." 

Yet human love was strong, and there was a 
pathetic desire to "linger a little while" with those 
dear to him, a desire recalling Timrod's dying words, 
''Love is better than rest." On July 6, 1886, he 
passed away. Hayne's works should be more wide- 
ly read and better known. For he represents 
the very best and highest in Southern life. His was 
a nature of the finest poise and moderation, of deli- 
cacy and refinement, expressing itself with a dis- 
tinction, modest, yet undeniable. The hurrying new 
South may well pause to hear his voice, and, having 
done so will go on its way the calmer and the more 
serene. 

CHRONOI.OGY. 

1830 — ^Jan. 1st — Paul Hamilton Hayne, born at 
Charleston, S. C. 



i68 LiTEjRATUR^ IN mt South 

1850 — Graduated from Charleston College. 

1852 — Married Miss Mary Middleton Michel, of 

Charleston. 
1855 — Publication of first volume of poems. (Tick- 

nor&Co.) 
1859 — Publication of "Avolio and other Poems." 
1 861 — Enlists in Confederate Army. 
1872 — Publication of ''Legends and Lyrics." Lip- 

pencott. 
1873 — Edited, with Memoir, Timrod's Poems. 
1875 — Publication of ''Mountain of the Lovers." 
1882 — Publication of Complete Edition of Poems. 

(D. Lathrop&Co.) 
1886— July 6— Death at Copse Hill, Georgia. 



lyiT^RATURie IN mt South 169 



XIL 

SIDNE:y IvANIl^R. 

The outward circumstances of Sidney Lanier's 
early years do not materially differ from those usual- 
ly attending Southern youth of his time and station. 
But from infancy the mark of genius was upon him. 
Art claimed him for her own. Think of the child 
of seven years making his first flute from a reed 
cut from the river side, and upon this Arcadian pipe 
rendering the notes of the birds that sang about his 
home. Before he could write a line he had taught 
himself to play upon several instruments. The vio- 
lin had an especial charm for him, but in deference 
to the wishes of his father, who dreaded its power, 
he did not devote himself to it. Indeed he received 
but slight musical encouragement at any time from 
his family, who seemed to consider the pursuit of 
music unworthy of manly purpose. Yet the musical 
genius was inherited. Jerome Lanier, a Huguenot, 
the first of the family of whom we have any knowl- 
edge, having been attached to the court of Queen 
Elizabeth as musical composer, his son being director 
of music at the court of James I and Charles I, 
while his grandson held a similar position at the 
court of Charles II. 

When he was fourteen years old, Sidney Lanier 
entered Oglethorpe College, a Presbyterian Institu- 



170 Lite:rature: in th^ South 

tion at Midway, Georgia. Four years later he grad- 
uated, and was at once called to a tutorship in the 
college. This tutorship he held till the beginning 
of the war. In his college note-book he recorded 
his earnest desire for light in the ways of life, the 
words of the boy of eighteen forming no unworthy 
prelude to the later years : — **The point which I wish 
to settle is merely by what method shall I ascertain 
what I am fit for, as preliminary to ascertaining 
God's will with reference to me ; or what my inclina- 
tions are, as preliminary to ascertaining what my 
capacities are, that is, what I am fit for. I am more 
than all perplexed by this fact, that the prime in- 
clination, that is natural bent (which I have checked, 
though) of my nature is to music, and for that I 
have the greatest talent; indeed, not boasting, for 
God gave it to me, I have an extraordinary musical 
talent, and feel it within me plainly that I might rise 
as high as any composer. But I cannot bring my- 
self to believe that I was intended for a musician, 
because it seems so small a business in comparison 
with other things w^hich it seems to me I might do. 
Question here, what is the province of music in the 
economy of the world?" 

But the call to arms sounded, and the quiet col- 
lege life was at an end. Enlisting, April, 1861, with 
the Macon Volunteers of the 26. Georgia Battalion, 
the first military organization of that State, he gave 
himself to the Southern cause. 

He remained a private through the whole of his 
army life, three times refusing promotion because 
he would not be separated from a younger brother. 
After the battle of Malvern Hill the two brothers 
were assigned to the signal service, and finally each 



Literature in the South 171 

was assigned to a blockade runner. Sidney's vessel 
was captured. He was offered an opportunity to 
escape by putting on a British uniform and leaving 
the vessel as one of the Englishmen, but he declined 
to avail himself of the opportunity. He was im- 
prisoned at Lookout until near the ei.d of the war 
when he was exchanged. He managed to keep his 
flute, and it was his great solace during the days of 
imprisonment. He found pleasure also in the asso- 
ciation with John Tabb, later "Father Tabb," his 
companion in prison, for in those days began that 
strong and lasting friendship. 

During the first year of service he found time for 
study, and it was then that he learned German. 
During the leisure of camp-life at Fort Boykin, on 
the James River, he had already begun his novel 
*'Tiger Lilies," and some of its scenes are laid there. 
This book was not completed until 1867. It was 
not the work of Lanier's mature genius, yet shows 
imagination of no common order, and certain de- 
tached passages, as one in praise of music, have been 
widely quoted. A personal friend of Lanier's wrote 
thus of his life at Fort Boykin :* — "Already he was 
eager to begin his work, but the present duty was 
ever foremost with him, and then, though he had a 
keen distaste for war and its long train of evils, he 
owed his first duty to the South, and all the exquisite 
fancies and noble thoughts must perforce lie dor- 
mant in his soul. But from the free life of the 
saddle, the wild enthusiasm born of the battle, the 
mad ride across the stormy bay amid dashing spray 
and muttering thunder, or with muffled oar hugging 

♦Southern Bivouac, May, 1887, 



172 LlT^RATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH 

the shore under shadow of the enemy's guns, the 
intercourse with all grades of men, the close com- 
panionship with Nature as he sentineled the lonely 
shore under the tranquil stars, arose many of those 
ideas which were afterwards to be crystalized into 
beautiful forms." 

But war was distasteful to him. A passage from 
"Tiger Lilies" reveals the attitude of his spirit with 
reference to the strife into which the feeling of duty 
had urged him. In this passage he tells us that war 
is "a strange and terrible flower" of damp shades 
and unhealthy odor, blooming in the spring of 1861 
among lovely and fragrant flowers. Christ had 
spoken words of warning against it, yet even now 
men had cultivated it at cost of "all their resources 
of money, of blood, of bones, of tears, of sulphur, 
and what not." Many thought that the seed of the 
American specimen were yet in the land, though the 
plant itself was dead; yet he, having suffered with 
many of his friends from its poisonous odors "could 
find it in his heart to wish fervently that this seed, 
if there be verily any, might perish in the germ, 
utterly out of sight, and life, and memory, and out 
of the remote hope of resurrection, forever and ever, 
no matter in whose granary they are cherished." 
It is altogether a striking metaphor. 

When the war ended he returned, on foot, to his 
Georgia home. Ill for several weeks afterwards, 
and saddened by his mother's death, he faced the 
changed conditions of life with the courage that 
never failed him. For several months he filled a 
clerkship in Montgomery, Alabama ; then was made 
principal of a school at Prattville, Alabama. In De- 
cember, 1867, he married Miss Mary Day, of 



Literature: in the South 173 

Macon, and a few months later returned to Macon, 
studying law, and afterwards practising with his 
father. The struggle against consumption had be- 
gun. There were alternating periods of decline and 
improvement. There was a visit to New York for 
treatment, and to Texas for climatic change, but 
there was never more than temporary improvement. 

Although during these years every uncongenial 
duty had been performed with scrupulous fidelity, 
Lanier felt himself called to another life than that 
open to him at Macon. Health was failing, time 
was passing, and the compulsion of genius was upon 
him; and so it came to pass that, armed with his 
flute and pen, he made his way to Baltimore in 1873 
to devote himself to music and literature. 

Insight into his life at this time is given in a let- 
ter to his father, who would have had him return 
to ^lacon: — ''My dear father," he writes, "think 
how for twenty years, through po^'erty, through 
pain, through weariness, through the uncongenial 
atmosphere of a farcical college and of a bare army 
and then of an exacting business life, through all 
the discouragement of being whollv unacquainted 
with literar}- people and literary ways — I say, think 
how, in spite of all these depressing circumstances, 
and of a thousand more which I could enumerate, 
these two figures of music and poetry have steadily 
kept in my heart so that I cannot banish them. Does 
it not seem to you, as to me, that I begin to have 
the right to enroll myself among the devotees of 
these two sublime arts, after having followed them 
so long, and so humbly, and through so much bit- 
terness ?" 

So began the sad, brave, beautiful years of this 



174 LlT^RATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH 

period of his life. He studied and wrote, sent his 
poems into the world, and played in symphony con- 
certs. Access to books was a new delight to him, 
and the literatures of many tongues yielded up their 
treasures to his toil. He felt that his life had been 
heretofore "a drought and famine" as regarded 
these matters, and that with himself as with others 
of his generation in the South, "pretty much the 
whole of life had been merely not dying." 

For six years Lanier played in the Peabody Sym- 
phony Orchestra of Baltimore. At the end of the 
first season he wrote to Hayne : — "I spent last win- 
ter in Baltimore, pursuing music and meditating my 
* Jacquerie.' I was flaiUo-primo at the Peabody 
Symphony Orchestra, and God only could express 
the delight and exultation with which I helped to 
perform the great works brought out by that or- 
ganization during the season. Of course this was 
a queer place for me. Aside from the complete 
hoideversement of proceeding from the Court House 
to the footlights, I was a raw player and a provincial 
withal, without practice and guiltless of instruction 
— for I never had a teacher. * * * But I trusted 
in love, pure and simple, and was not disappointed ; 
for, as if by miracle, difficulties and discourage- 
ments melted away before the fire of a passion for 
music which grows ever stronger within my heart." 

Asgar Hamerick, his director, has paid a high 
tribute to his art, telling us how Lanier transformed 
the flute from a mere material instrument into "a 
voice that set heavenly harmonies into vibration." 
''His playing," Hamerick continues, "appealed alike 
to the musically learned and the unlearned — for he 
would magnetize the listener; but the artist felt itl 



LlT^RATUR^ IN the; SoUTH 1/5 

his performance the superiority of the momentary 
hving inspiration to all the rules and shifts of mere 
technical scholarship. His art was not only the art 
of art, but an art above art." H. Clay Wisham* 
has this to say of his playing : — "Art he served with 
a high and holy respect ; * * * j-^is sole aim, re- 
gardless of the temptation to express one's self, was 
to discover and aid in the interpretation of the com- 
poser's meaning ; this done he merged his individual- 
ity and became a part of the marvelous machinery 
in the technical mysteries of orchestration. * * *"* 

Lanier was busy not with flute alone, but with 
book and pen as well. He set no limits to his labors. 
He was attaining the fulness of his intellectual 
powers with the mastery of expression. Ill for long 
stretches of time, separated by force of poverty for 
months at a time from his family, going to Florida 
to write a guide book for a railroad company, doing 
any work that would bring bread to those dear to 
him, he never faltered from the high purpose of 
poetic expression that filled him. 

To-day, moved by the beauty of "Corn," thrilled 
by the loveliness of "The Symphony," we ask, how 
could it be that when the poet came to the world, 
the world did not at once accord its glad acclaim? 
Paul Hayne knew him for a poet from the first, and 
Bayard Taylor's spirit had leaped forth to meet 
him. But his disciples gathered slowly. His bold 

*Independent, November, 1887. 
*Wisham, in the same article, writes : — "Liszt tells of 
Chopin, and so of Lanier it may be said, that 'his character in 
none of its numerous folds concealed a single movement, a 
single impulse, which was not dictated by the nicest sense of 
honor, the most delicate appreciation of affection.' " 



176 Lite:rature: in the^ South 

theories of poetic art startled the critics by very 
originaHty. The Centennial Cantata — which at 
Bayard Taylor's suggestion he was chosen to write 
— was greeted with a chorus of derisive comment. 
Adverse, even unkind, criticism, aroused no resent- 
ment, provoked no retaliation on the poet's part. 
True to the holy purpose of his genius, he gave no 
utterance to the world not in harmony with his 
highest ideals, never conformed to a lower standard 
to win popularity^ 

In his far-seeing wisdom he knew that the judg- 
ment of a man's day is not infallible, and that with- 
out regard to this judgment the artist must "put 
forth humbly and lovingly, and without bitterness 
against opposition the very best and highest that is 
in him." These words occur in a letter to his 
father. In a letter to his wife he gives this "con- 
fession of faith," "Know, then, that disappoint- 
ments were inevitable, and will still come until I 
have fought the battle which every great artist has 
had to fight since time began. This — dimly felt 
while I was doubtful of my own vocation and powers 
■ — is clear as the sun to me now that I know through 
the fiercest tests of life, that I am in soul and shall 
be in life and utterance, a great poet. * * * Have, 
then, no fears and anxieties in my behalf. * * * 
It is of little consequence whether / fail; the / in 
the matter is a small business. * * * ^g^ my 
name perish — the poetry is good poetry, and the 
music is good music, and beauty dieth not, and the 
heart that needs it will find it." 

For Lanier was conscious, with a solemn, sacred 
consciousness, of the possession of genius, though 
his wording of this consciousness was but to 



Lite:rature: in the South 177 

strengthen and comfort the wife who was suffering 
in sympathy because of his trials. But for this con- 
sciousness could he with such serenity have main- 
tained the struggle? 

How filled with labor and how rich in attainment 
were the few short years ! Besides his musical en- 
gagements there were courses of lectures on litera- 
ture. These led to his appointment as Lecturer at 
Johns Hopkins, 1879. Their substance, to a great 
extent, is embodied in the volumes ''The Science of 
English Verse" and "The English Novel and the 
Principles of its Development." From time to time 
his poems were written, while he edited for boys the 
great old books of chivalry; Sir Thomas Mallory, 
Froissart, and Percy. One does not often turn to 
the preface of a boy's book to find beauty of thought 
or wording, but there is a passage in the preface to 
the Froissart, in which Lanier with fine and rare 
unconsciousness portrays his own chivalrous traits : 
— "A good deal of what is really combat nowadays 
is not called combat. * * * Nevertheless the 
same qualities that made a manful fighter then make 
one now. To speak the very truth; to perform a 
promise to the uttermost; to reverence all women; 
to maintain right and honesty; to help the weak; 
to treat high and low with courtesy; to be constant 
to one's love ; to be fair to one's bitter foe ; to despise 
luxury; to preserve simplicity, modesty, and gentle- 
ness in heart and bearing; this was the oath of the 
young knight who took the stroke upon him in the 
fourteenth century, and this is still the way to win 
love and glory in the nineteenth." 

All this work was accomplished while Lanier was 
making the hopeless struggle against disease. I 



178 Litejrature: in th^ South 

know of nothing in the history of literature that 
equals this — the unfailing faith and cheerfulness and 
courage that mark his every utterance. There is no 
faltering of the brave spirit, no bitter outcry against 
fate, no reproaches for an unappreciative public, 
either in his writing or in his conversation. There 
was never a time when he withdrew himself from 
his kind, and those who met him even once were 
impressed by his geniality and simplicity of manner 
joined with refinement and distinction. Lowell, in 
speaking of him, said : — "The image of his shining 
presence is among the friendliest in memory." But 
such was the influence of his nature, that those who 
lived near him felt that simply to be with him was 
an inspiration to higher living. 

Stricken with fever and smitten with pain, con- 
tinuing his work and fulfilling his obligations day 
after day by the pure strength of spirit, he sent 
forth his poems, beautiful and strong and helpful 
and life-giving. It is altogether characteristic that 
his dying song was "Sunrise," and filled with very 
life and joyous strength. This was in December, 
1880, when he was brought close to death, though 
he afterwards rallied so far as to be able to give the 
course of University lectures later published under 
the title "The English Novel.* Spring and summer 
brought no improvement, and physicians advised, 
as the only chance of prolonging the sufferer's days, 



♦"With the utmost care of himself, going in a closed car- 
riage and sitting during his lecture, his strength was so ex- 
hausted that the struggle for breath in the carriage on his 
return seemed each time to threaten the end. Those who 
heard him listened with a sort of fascinated terror, as in 
doubt whether the hoarded breath would suffice to the end." 
Memorial by William Hayes Ward. 



' Literature in the South 179 

tent life in a mountain region. The place chosen 
was Richmond Hill, near Asheville, North Carolina, 
where Lanier's brother and father met him, and did 
what they could to make him comfortable. After- 
wards they took him to Lynn, and there his final 
illnef came. Brother and father had gone home 
expecting to return. **We are left alone with one 
another,*' Mrs. Lanier has written. "On the last 
night of the summer comes a change. His love 
and immortal will hold off the destroyer of our sum- 
mer, yet one more week, until the forenoon of Sep- 
tember 7th, and then falls the frost, and that un- 
faltering will renders its supreme submission to the 
adored will of God." 

So he passed from earthly ken. It was fitting 
that he who had loved beauty to the end, and whose 
life had been passed on spiritual heights, should have 
fallen asleep when the time came there on the beau- 
tiful heights of Lynn. 

Lanier had been deeply convinced early in his 
career that the poetic art suffered from the fact that 
criticism was without a basis for even elementary 
judgments. His desire for scientific accuracy led 
him to the study of the laws governing English 
verse, and then to the exposition of those laws in 
that thoroughly original book, ''The Science of Eng- 
lish Verse." He lays stress upon time measure- 
ments in rhythm rather than upon accent, and de- 
velops his theory with many illustrations from Old 
English literature. He treats of rhyme, allitera- 
tion, the recurrence vowels and consonants in 
euphonic succession, as ''tone color," thus using 
terms of music rather than of grammar in discussing 
the forms of poetry. In conclusion he says that per- 



l8o LlT^RATUR^ IN TH^ SoUTH 

ception and love of beauty constitute the artist's 

whole outfit, and that what he has written is for the 
purpose of ''enlarging that perception, and exalting 
that love." That in all cases the appeal must be to 
the ear, educated therefore to "the highest plane of 
culture." 

His own poems evidence the power of music, a 
most delicate and true harmony. Perhaps the first 
impression made in reading what he has left us is 
the exquisite music of his expression, even his sim- 
plest prose having this quality. Yet, equally certain 
is it, that there is no musical wording without the 
value of thought; no play with rhyme or allitera- 
tion for the sake of mere effect. 

Furthermore, Lanier felt that certain poets erred 
in neglecting the claims of exact knowledge. He 
insisted that the poet should study many subjects 
and seek accuracy, distrusting the art that trusts 
solely to natural gifts. As for himself there seemed 
no easily assignable limits to his eager interests. 

It was in his last lecture at Johns Hopkins that he 
uttered those striking words with reference to the 
identity of truth and beauty, and the moral purpose 
of poetry. Let me quote his own words. *'For, 
indeed, we may say that he who has not yet per- 
ceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are con- 
vergent lines which run back into a common ideal 
origin, and who therefore is not afire with moral 
beauty just as with artistic beauty — that he, in short, 
who has not come to that stage of quiet and eternal 
frenzy in which the beauty of holiness and the holi- 
ness of beauty mean one thing, burn as one fire, 
shine as one light within him ; he is not yet the great 
artist." Yet he granted that moral ugliness might 



Literature: in the South i8i 

be portrayed for a moral purpose. It was this abso- 
lute fealty to the law of righteousness, this rapt con- 
viction of moral purpose, with the suffusion with 
wisdom and beauty and truth and goodness, that 
determined his altogether lofty habit of thought. 

Original in his conception as in his expression, 
yet Lanier rejoiced in the writings of others, and 
held converse with the fine spirits of all time. ''The 
Crystal" and ''Clover" especially show this familiar- 
it>^ with literature and philosophy, while ever>' verse 
has the force of individualit}'. 

The great and beautiful were never far away from 
Lanier. He looked upon scenes familiar to us all, 
and listened to sounds that we hear every day. He 
has interpreted for us the message of the Chatta- 
hoochee, he has taught us to look upon the broad 
sweep of salt marshes beyond the "dear, dark 
woods," and to see with him how 

*Xike to the greatness of God is the greatness within 
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of 
Glynn." 

His "fiteldward-faring eyes" locked upon the corn- 
fields and hillsides of a Georgia plantation, and the 
result is they 

"Take har\'ests, where the stately corn ranks rise, 

Of inward dignities, 
And large benignities and insights wise, 

Graces and modest majesties." 

Notwithstanding his remarkable insight into Na- 
ture, one notes the entire absence of what Ruskin 



i82 Liti^rature; in the South 

has termed "the pathetic fallacy" in certain poets; 
for he knew 

"Th' indifferent smile that Nature's grace 
On Jesus, Judas, pours alike ; 
Th' indifferent frown on Nature's face 
When luminous lightnings strangely strike." 

Moved by social wrongs and the cries of the poor, 
he wrote the "Symphony," in this most musical of 
all his poems treating of the hard facts and pressing 
problems that had so profoundly interested him. 
This is his solution of a problem too deep for "the 
brain of a Plato," but plain to "the heart of a child." 

"Life! Life! Thou sea- fugue writ from east to 
west 

Love, Love alone can pore 

On thy dissolving score 

Of harsh half-phrasings, 

Blotted ere writ, 

And double erasing 

Of chords most fit. 
Yea, Love, sole music-master blest, 
May read thy weltering palimpsest. 
To follow Time's dying melodies through 
And never to lose the old in the new, 
And ever to solve the discords true — 

Love alone can do. 
And ever Love hears the poor folks' crying. 
And ever Love hears the women's sighing. 
And ever sweet knighthood's death-defying, 
And ever wise childhood's deep implying. 
But never a trader's glozing and lying." 



Literature in the South 183 

This was his message to selfish materialism. 
Lanier had written of himself to Hayne as a pro- 
vincial, but there is no provincialism in his work. 
So large was his capacity, so catholic his interest, so 
broad his sympathies, that his genius was unre- 
stricted by any narrowing influence. Thus the pa- 
triotism of the Southerner of Huguenot ancestry 
wrote of the Mayflower : — 

''Mayflower, Ship of Faith's best Hope! 

Oh, with love and love's best care 
Thy large, godly freightage bear — 
Godly Hearts that Grails of gold, 
Still the blood of Faith do hold." 

And one would go far to find a more fervent and 
lofty yet sane expression of patriotism than these 
lines of the Cantata : — 

"Long as thine Art shall love true love, 
Long as thy Science truth shall know, 
Long as thine Eagle harms no dove, 
Long as the Law by law shall grow. 
Long as thy God is God above, 
Thy brother every man below, 
So long, dear Land of all my love 
Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow." 

So broad in all his sympathies, it is hardly strange 
that Lanier had little love for sectarianism or creed 
limitations. That men should dispute in godless 
fashion about God was ever a grief to him, and in 



184 LlT^RATUR^ IN TH^ SouTH 

''Remonstrance" he cries out against formalized 
opinion : — 

"I would thou left'st me free, to live with love, 
And faith that through the love of love doth find 
My Lord's dear presence in the stars above, 
The clods below, the flesh without, the mind 
Within, the bread, the tear, the smile." 

Indeed his deep religious feeling was so essential 
a part of his life that the greater number of his 
poems are suffused with it. The personal love of 
Christ, adoration, yet brotherhood unafraid that 
called "The Crystal" into being; the tender rever- 
ence of the ''Ballad of the Trees," and the calm, 
awaiting trust of ''The Marshes of Glynn" were ele- 
ments of his worshiping soul. 

Lanier has come to his own slowly. The admira- 
tion of such discerning critics as Dr. W. H. Ward — 
who read the poems "Clover," "Sunrise,'' "Ballad 
of the Trees," and "The Crystal" in manuscript, and 
recognized the work of genius — and of a few others, 
was regarded generally as having but slight founda- 
tion. Now, so steadily has Lanier's influence grown 
that but to mention his name awakens enthusiasm. 
Indeed, there is serious danger that this enthusiasm 
may develop a sentimentality that accepts all with- 
out exercise of the critical faculty, refusing to note 
the distinct growth of Lanier's powers, and the dis- 
tinctive elements of value in his work. Certain of 
his poems are for all ; others yield up their value only 
to the thoughtful reader or student, and the char- 
acterization of one or a few will not suffice for all. 

He literally expressed himself in his work. It is 



LlTEJRATUR^ IN THE) SoUTH 185 

true there were many songs in his heart that he could 
never find time to utter, and he had planned more 
than his few years allowed him to execute; yet, as 
Dr. Merrill Gates has happily expressed it, "What 
nobler or truer service can an artist render to his 
age and to all time than Lanier has done in thus lay- 
ing off for us in his life, be its years many or few, 
a perfect arc that reveals to us the far-reaching com- 
prehensive sweep of the great circles that include 
all beauty, holiness, and truth ?" 

CHRONOIvOGY. 

1842 — Feb. 3 — -Sidney Lanier, born at Macon, Ga. 

i860 — Graduated from Oglethorpe College. 

1 861 — April — Enlisted in Confederate Army. 

Dec, 1865 to Apr. 1867 — Filled a clerkship in Mont- 
gomery, Ala. 

1867 — May— First visit to New York. Publication 
of "Tiger Lilies." Sept. — Became princi- 
pal of academy, Prattville, Ala. Dec. — 
Married to Miss Mary Day, of Macon, Ga. 

1868 — May — Returned to Macon. Studied Law 
and began practice. 

1870 — ^Visit to New York for medical treatment. 

1872 — Dec. — Visit to San Antonio in search of 
health. 

1873 — Dec. — Removal to Baltimore. 

1874 — May — ^Visit to Florida. 

1881— Sept. 7— Death, at Lynn, N. C. 

WORKS. 

Tiger Lilies: A Novel. 1867. 



1 86 LlT^RATURlS IN TH^ SoUTH 

Florida: Its Scenery, Climate, and History. 1876. 

Poems. 1877. 

The Boy's Froissart. 1878. 

The Science of English Verse. 1880. 

The Boy's King Arthur. 1880. 

The Boy's Mabinogion. 188 1. 

The Boy's Percy. 1882. 

The English Novel. 1883. 

Poems. (Edited by his wife, with memorial by 

Wm. H. Ward.) 1884. 
Letters. Studies of Shakespeare. 



LlT^RATUR^ IN TH]^ SoUTH 1 8/ 



REFERENCES ON SOUTHERN LITERA- 
TURE. 

Abernathy. Southern Poets. 
Baskerville, W. M. Southern Writers. 
Benton. In the Poe Circle. 
Cooke. History of Virginia. 

Davidson. Living Writers of the South. (1869.}] 
Forrest. Women of the South in Literature. 
Fortier. Louisiana Studies. 
Harrison. Life of Poe. 
Holiday. A History of Southern Literature. 
Hubner. Representative Poets of the South. 
Jones. Life, Labors, and Neglected Grave of Rich- 
ard Henry Wilde. 
Link. Pioneers of Southern Literature. 
Manly. Southern Literature. 
Mims. Life of Lanier. 
Ogden. Literature of the Virginias. 
Painter. Poets of the South. 
Rutherford. American Authors. 
Rutherford. The South in History and Literature 
Stedman. Poets of America. 
Trent. Southern Writers. 
Trent. Life of Simms. 
Trent. Mind and Art of Poe. 
Trent and Wells. Colonial Literature. 
(Tyler. Colonial and Revolutionary Periods. 



1 88 Liti:rature; in the South 

Wharton. War Songs and Poems of the Southern 

Confederacy. 
Weber. Southern Poets. 
Woodberry. Life of Poe. 
Weiss. Home Life of Poe. 



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ton. 

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Grand Opera House, Syra- 
cuse. 

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Haven. 

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Rand's Opera House, Troy. 

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Sam S. Shubert Theatre, 
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By N. J. Floyd. 

^9 'Drawings and Author's Photo. 

$1.50. 

"Ne wiser or more brilliant pen has told the story of 
/the Civil War tr.ar Capt Floyd's ; no work more thrilling 
y simply as a ronvjice has recently been within tha reach 
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L 



BOOKS YOU NVST READ 
SOONER. OR LATER 

^lo Surrender, 

By John N. Swift and William S. Birge, M.D. 

Cloth, i2mo. Frontispiece. Price, $1.50 

From the moment this story opens in the old 
whaling station of New Bedford, until the climax 
of climaxes is reached in the high seas some- 
where off the coast of Chile, excitement and in- 
terest are in order. It is a tale that allows of 
no laying aside and as incident comes crowding 
upon incident the reader finds himself utterly 
oblivious to everything but the words before 
him. 

Imagine, if you can. the consternation of the 
Chilean commander and his officers of the cruiser 
"Dona Inez" when, on their arrival at the land- 
ing stage, ready to embark after an hour's shore 
leave, they find the ship, which they had left 
safely swinging at her moorings, completely 
vanished. 

Such a statement is enough to arouse im- 
mediate curiosity and what became of the "Dona" 
and what became of the Chilean commander and 
his officers forms the plot of this most extra- 
ordinary narrative. 

Of course the "Dona" has been skilfully pur- 
loined for felonious purposes, and while she and 
her piratical crew are undergoing all manner of 
marine castastrophe one of the former officers 
is dashing overland to head off if possible dis- 
agreeable contingencies v/ith the Chilean Naval 
Department. His adventures are not less thril- 
ling than those which befall the ship, and the 
clever chapter arrangement keeps the reader's 
interest ever whetted. 

Broadway Publishing Company, 

835 Broadway, New York. 



BOOKS YOV MUST READ 
SOONER OR LATER 

L&dy Century 

By Mrs. A. CL Kintzel., 
4 Drawings by Hartman. 
Decorated cover in black, red and gol<f. 
$ ISO- 
Critics who have seen the book declare "it superior to 
"Leave Me My Honor," the success which has recently 
brought Mrs. Kintzel into prominence as a story-teller 
who has something to say and can say it 
"Sparkling from cover to cover." 



NAN & SUE 

Stenographers 

Bv Harriet C. Cullaton.; 
$i.oo. 

You've no doubt heard of this book! It stands all 
alone in the originality of its title and subject, and every- 
one knows how charming a subject "Nan & Sue, Ste- 
nographers," must be. It is the diary of a typewritings 
office in New York run by two young and pretty girls, 
who have the most amusing adventures. The book's ap- 
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themselves. 

Order now and join the procession on the autona. 
loth editic»i. 



a 



BOOKS YOU NVST READ 
SOONER OR LATER 

Reuben: His Book 

By Morton H. Pemberton. 

Cloth, Gilt lettering, i2mo. Postpaid, $i.oa 
Portrait in Colors. 

One of the funniest, cleverest, uniquest volume* 
of the day, it has won spontaneous and unani- 
mous approval from reviewers the country over. 

Just hear what a few of them say: 

Champ Clark. — "I haven't laughed so much 
since I first read Mark Twain's 'Roughing It.' " 

Globe-Democrat. — "This little book has the 
merit of brevity, variety and humor. It is safe 
to say that the book will have many readers and 
that it will afford much amusement." 

St. Louis Republic. — "The book is already 
heading the list of 'best sellers,' and deserves to 
go. It is GOOD. It is the sort of thing which 
might move the provincial journalist to say, 
'Reub, here's our hand.' " 

^ Scarlet liepentance 

By Archie Bell, 
Cloth, i2mo. Price, $i.oo. 

One Review: "The history of one night and 
one day's flaming passion between a beauti- 
ful Italian woman and a handsome youth — 
strangers — who meet upon a Pullman car. 
There comes into the story all the elementary 
passions, hatred, jealousy, desire and — sorrow. 

"It is a story that will appeal to those who 
prefer novels in which red blood is throbbing 
madly. It is not for prudes, nor for parsons, 
nor poseurs. It's a book for men and women 
who have lived." — The Club-Fellow. 

Broadway Publishing: Company, 

835 Broadway, New York. 






103 




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